Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, the highest ranking contracting official at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), testifies before the Democratic Policy Committee. She criticizes how the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract was awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Browning, & Root (KBR). “I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” She notes that there were several irregularities in the USACE’s contract with KBR to restore Iraqi oil: The independence of the USACE contracting process was severely compromised. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) controlled “every aspect of the RIO contract,” even after responsibility for the contract was delegated to the US Army. She questioned why the Defense Department had delegated executive agency authority for the RIO contract to the Corps when it has no competencies related to oil production. Such work was outside the scope of its congressionally-mandated mission. The Defense Department paid KBR to prepare for oil production restoration work before the RIO contract was even awarded. The payments were made under the already operational Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), the scope of which did not include such work. Greenhouse said that the US government should have signed a new contract with KBR for this work. When she questioned the legality of these payments, she was incorrectly told that a new contract was being issued. [Democratic Policy Committee, 6/27/2005 ]

Gordon Cucullu. [Source: The Intelligence Summit]“Independent military analyst” Gordon Cucullu, a former Green Beret, is an enthusiastic participant in the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). Cucullu has just returned from a half-day tour of the Guantanamo detention facility (see June 24-25, 2005), and is prepared to give the Pentagon’s approved message to the media. Talking Points Covered in Fox Appearance - In an e-mail to Pentagon official Dallas Lawrence, he alerts the department to a new article he has written for conservative Website FrontPage, and notes that he has appeared on an early-morning broadcast on Fox News and delivered the appropriate talking points: “I did a Fox & Friends hit at 0620 this morning. Good emphasis on 1) no torture, 2) detainees abuse guards, and 3) continuing source of vital intel.” [Salon, 5/9/2008]Op-Ed: Pampered Detainees Regularly Abuse Guards - In the op-ed for FrontPage, entitled “What I Saw at Gitmo,” he writes that the US is being “extraordinarily lenient—far too lenient” on the detainees there. There is certainly abuse going on at Guantanamo, Cucullu writes—abuse of soldiers by the detainees. Based on his three-hour tour of the facility, which included viewing one “interrogation” and touring an unoccupied cellblock, Cucullu says that the detainees “fight their captors at every opportunity” and spew death threats against the soldiers, their families, and Americans in general. The soldiers are regularly splattered with “feces, urine, semen, and spit.” One detainee reportedly told another, “One day I will enjoy sucking American blood, although their blood is bitter, undrinkable.” US soldiers, whom Cucullu says uniformly treat the detainees with courtesy and restraint (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003), are constantly attacked by detainees who wield crudely made knives, or try to “gouge eyes and tear mouths [or] grab and break limbs as the guards pass them food.” In return, the detainees are given huge meals of “well-prepared food,” meals which typically overflow from two styrofoam containers. Many detainees insist on “special meal orders,” and throw fits if their meals are not made to order. The level of health care they are granted, Cucullu says, would suit even the most hypochondriac American. Cucullu writes that the detainees are lavished with ice cream treats, granted extended recreational periods, live in “plush environs,” and provided with a full array of religious paraphernalia. “They are not abused, hanged, tortured, beheaded, raped, mutilated, or in any way treated the way that they once treated their own captives—or now treat their guards.” The commander, Brigadier General Jay Hood, tells Cucullu that such pampered treatment provides better results than harsher measures. “Establishing rapport” is more effective than coercion, Hood says, and, in Cucullu’s words, Hood “refers skeptics to the massive amount of usable intelligence information [the detainees] produce even three years into the program.” In conclusion, Cucullu writes, the reader is “right to worry about inhumane treatment” at Guantanamo, but on behalf of the soldiers, not the detainees. [FrontPage Magazine, 6/27/2005]

The Pentagon, tracking every bit of media coverage provided by the “independent military analysts” who are part of its Iraq propaganda program (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond), is particularly pleased with the results of its half-day tour of Guantanamo for selected analysts (see June 24-25, 2005). Its tracking (see 2005 and Beyond) finds that Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Cucullu (see June 27, 2005) receives the most coverage during the almost two weeks after the tour, followed by Major General Donald Shepperd (see June 24-27, 2005). In all, the analysts made 37 media appearances. They emphasized the following talking points: Prisoner/Guard Abuse - “Most abuse is either toward US military personnel and/or between prisoners.” “US military guards are regularly threatened by prisoners.” “Some analysts stated there may have been past abuses at Gitmo but not now.” 'Prisoner Interrogations' - “Interrogators are building relationships with prisoners, not torturing them.” “We are still gaining valuable information from prisoners.” Interrogations are very professionally run.” 'Quality of Prisoner Care' - “Prisoners are given excellent treatment, including provision of any and all religious paraphernalia.” “Special dietary requests are routinely granted.” 'Closing Gitmo' - “Gitmo exceeds Geneva Convention requirements.” “We should not close this facility and let dangerous terrorists out.” [Salon, 5/9/2008]

The US-Iraq Joint Commission on Reconstruction and Economic Development meets in Amman, Jordan, to discuss Iraq’s progress in implementing a number of reforms that will help transition the country to a market-based economy (see, e.g., September 29, 2004). During the two-day meeting, Iraqi representatives reconfirm their commitment to scaling back fuel and food subsidies. They also announce the opening of a USAID-backed Investment Promotion Agency that will help Iraqi and foreign investors open businesses in Iraq. [US Department of State, 7/13/2005]

An employee of the Lincoln Group, which has a contract with the Defense Department to do information operations within Iraq, submits an article with the headline “Terrorists Attack Sunni Volunteers” to the Al Mada newspaper in downtown Baghdad. According to the newspaper’s editors, he pays them $900 to run the piece. Lincoln Group records obtained by the Los Angeles Times also show the transaction, though it is recorded that the payment was $1,200. [Los Angeles Times, 11/30/2005]

The Bush administration’s relentless public relations campaign to sell the Iraq war is falling flat, crushed under the weight of events, according to author and media critic Frank Rich. Its new marketing slogan—“As the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down”—leaves most listeners cold, according to surveys. When President Bush proclaims that “30 Iraqi battalions [are] in the lead” in the fighting, his words are disproven within hours, by statements from his own commanders to Congress that note the number of Iraqi battalions fighting alongside American forces has declined from three to one. Rich will put the facts into his own words: “750 soldiers were now ready to stand up on their own should America’s 140,000 troops stand down.” Bush officials also try to claim a victory by announding the death of “the second most wanted al-Qaeda leader in Iraq,” the “top operational commander of al-Qaeda in Baghdad.” The news makes little, if any, impact in the media or on the American citizenry. “He may not even be one of the top 10 or 15 leaders,” one Iraq expert tells reporters. Lastly, Bush officials’ lofty claims of stopping 10 al-Qaeda plots draw little besides scorn. According to Rich, Americans know by now that these so-called plots have been roundly debunked, proven either to be the same ones that have been endlessly trotted out over the years, far less substantial than originally reported, or merely lies. [Rich, 2006, pp. 198]

Someone pays nearly $1,500 to the Iraqi independent Addustour newspaper to run a news report titled “More Money Goes to Iraq’s Development.” The newspaper’s editor, Bassem Sheikh, later tells the Los Angeles Times that he has “no idea” who wrote it or where it came from. Addustour publishes the piece with the note “media services” above the text of the article to distinguish it from other editorial content. [Los Angeles Times, 11/30/2005]

William Cowan. [Source: The Intelligence Summit]Fourteen Marines die in Iraq. Hours after their deaths, William Cowan, a retired Marine colonel and Fox News analyst (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond) who has grown increasingly uncomfortable with what he will later call the Pentagon’s “twisted version of reality” being pushed on analysts in briefings, telephones the Pentagon to advise officials that his upcoming comments on Fox “may not all be friendly.” He is then given a private briefing, quickly arranged by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s senior aides. But Cowan then tells Fox host Bill O’Reilly that it has been “a bad week” in Iraq, that many military officials he has talked to were “expressing a lot of dismay and disappointment at the way things are going,” and the US is “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq. The repercussions are almost immediate. According to Cowan, he is “precipitously fired from the analysts group” for this appearance. The Pentagon “simply didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t carrying their water.” Cowan later recalls: “Suddenly, boom, I never got another telephone call, I never got another e-mail from them.… I was just booted off the group. I was fired.” Cowan will say that he and other analysts were given special access only “as long as they thought I was serving their purposes.… I drink nobody’s Kool-Aid.” The next day, the other analysts take part in a conference call with General James Conway, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he urges them not to let the Marines’ deaths erode support for the war. Conway is blunt, saying directly that the US citizenry is the main target of Pentagon propaganda. “The strategic target remains our population,” he tells them. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.” An analyst chimes in, “General, I just made that point on the air.” Conway says, “Let’s work it together, guys.” [New York Times, 4/20/2008; Washington Post, 4/21/2008]

Camp Casey. [Source: Indybay (.org)]Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, of Vacaville, California, sets up “Camp Casey” three miles outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch. Bush has come to his ranch for his yearly August vacation; Sheehan has come to demand a meeting with Bush to discuss the loss of her son, Casey, in Iraq. Sheehan chooses the date to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the briefing that warned Bush of Osama bin Laden’s intention to attack the US (see August 6, 2001). Camp Casey begins as a single pup tent in a ditch by the side of a dirt road, in which Sheehan intends to stay for whatever time it takes to secure a meeting with Bush. Author and media critic Frank Rich later writes that because Bush is so firmly ensconsced in the protective “bubble” that shields him from awareness of criticism, he and his top officials are blindsided by the media response to Sheehan’s lonely vigil. Casey Sheehan, who died in April 2004 a mere two weeks after his arrival in Iraq (see April 4, 2004), will become, Rich will write, emblematic of both “the noble intentions of those who volunteered to fight the war [and] also the arrogance, incompetence, and recklessness of those who gave the marching orders.” Bush Refuses to Meet with Sheehan - Bush will refuse to meet with Sheehan and the increasing number of peace activists who gather at Camp Casey, causing him inordinate embarrassment (see August 12, 2005) as more and more reporters begin questioning his motives in refusing to meet with the bereaved mother of a fallen US soldier. Bush even ignores the advice of some of his public relations staffers and fellow Republicans, who ask him to reconsider, as Senator George Allen (R-VA) says, “as a matter of courtesy and decency.” Rich will write: “Only someone as adrift as Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president couldn’t win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7. But the White House held firm. In a particularly unfortunate gesture, the presidential motorcade, in a rare foray out of the vacation compound, left Sheehan in the dust on its way to a fundraiser at a fat cat’s ranch nearby” (see August 12, 2005). [Rich, 2006, pp. 193-196] Political analyst Charlie Cook says: “Anything that focuses media and public attention on Iraq war casualties day after day—particularly [something] that is a good visual for television, like a weeping Gold Star mother—is a really bad thing for President Bush and his administration.… Americans get a little numb by the numbers of war casualties, but when faces, names, and families are added, it has a much greater effect.” Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway agrees, saying: “Cindy Sheehan has tapped into a latent but fervent feeling among some in this country who would prefer that we not engage our troops in Iraq. She can tap into what has been an astonishingly silent minority since the end of last year’s presidential contest. It will capture attention.” University professor Stephen Hess says that Sheehan’s “movement… can be countered by a countermovement” and therefore negated, but “I think the president might have defused the situation if he had invited her in instantly.” Hess predicts that Sheehan will soon be targeted by Republican strategists in a counterattack (see August 11, 2005 and After). Focus of Antiwar Movement - Camp Casey quickly becomes the focus of the American antiwar movement, with organizations such as MoveOn.org and Code Pink pitching in to help expand and coordinate the camp, and high-profile Democratic operatives such as Joe Trippi organizing support among left-wing bloggers. MoveOn’s Tom Mattzie says: “Cindy reached out to us.… Cindy is a morally pure voice on the war, so we’re trying to keep the focus on her and not jump in and turn it into a political fight.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/11/2005]

Al Mutamar, a Baghdad-based daily run by associates of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, runs a news article titled “Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism” prominently on the newspaper’s second page. According to Luay Baldawi, the paper’s chief editor, the paper receives no money to run the story. However, according to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Al Mutamar was paid $50. [Los Angeles Times, 11/30/2005]

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin meet with antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan (see August 6, 2005 and After) for about 45 minutes. Sheehan, who has requested a meeting with President Bush during his vacation at his ranch in Texas, says she is not satisfied with the meeting with Hadley and Hagin. “I don’t believe his phony excuses for the war,” she says. “I want him to tell me why my son died (see April 4, 2004). If he gave the real answer, people in this country would be outraged—if he told people it was to make his buddies rich, that it was about oil.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/11/2005]

Right-wing commentators react to the sudden media presence of antiwar activist and bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan (see August 6, 2005 and After) with vitriolic criticism. (Author and media critic Frank Rich will later write of his belief that the anti-Sheehan campaign is orchestrated from the White House: “The attack was especially vicious because there was little the White House feared more than a critic who had more battle scars than a president or a vice president who had avoided Vietnam.”) Weekly Standard writer Fred Barnes tells Fox News viewers that Sheehan is a “crackpot.” Right-wing bloggers begin spreading lurid, and sometimes false, stories of her recent divorce and the opposition Sheehan receives from some of her family members. Because some of the Camp Casey protesters showed the recent Iraq documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (see June 25, 2004), many right-wing commentators and pundits accuse Sheehan of being a tool of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin accuses Sheehan and other bereaved family members opposing the war of using their losses to promote their ideological agenda, and calls them “grief pimps.” The American Spectator says Sheehan’s own peace organization, Gold Star Families for Peace, “seeks to impeach George W. Bush and apparently to convince the US government to surrender to Muslim terrorists.” Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh makes the extraordinary claim that Sheehan is making up the entire story of her son’s death (see April 4, 2004), claiming that her loss “is nothing more than forged documents—there’s nothing about it that’s real.” Rich later notes that what he calls “the Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan” has “failed, utterly.” He will continue: “The hope this time was that we’d change the subject to Cindy Sheehan’s ‘wacko’ rhetoric and the opportunistic left-wing groups that have attached themselves to her like barnacles. That way we would forget about her dead son. But if much of the 24/7 media has taken the bait, much of the public has not.… The public knows that what matters this time is Casey Sheehan’s story, not the mother who symbolizes it.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/11/2005; Washington Post, 8/13/2005; New York Times, 8/21/2005; Rich, 2006, pp. 194-195]

The Bush motorcade drives past Camp Casey; Texas police officers stand between the motorcade and the camp. [Source: American Patriot Friends Network]President Bush and his motorcade drive past the growing camp of war protesters and peace activists nicknamed “Camp Casey” (see August 6, 2005 and After) without stopping, leaving the gathered protesters and bereaved family members literally in the dust. Bush is on his way to a fundraising barbecue expected to raise at least $2 million for the Republican National Committee. Camp founder Cindy Sheehan holds a sign that reads, “Why do you make time for donors and not for me?” The Associated Press reports, “It was unclear whether Bush, riding in a black Suburban with tinted windows, saw the demonstrators.” Bush has continued to refuse to meet with Sheehan and the others in Camp Casey, a makeshift camp three miles outside of his Crawford, Texas vacation ranch. The camp is attracting war protesters, peace activists, and bereaved family members who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Associated Press, 8/12/2005] The New York Times notes that in less than a week, Camp Casey has grown from one woman’s lonely vigil to a gathering of well over 100 protesters and family members, with visits from celebrities such as actor Viggo Mortensen and a full-time police presence. War supporters have blasted Sheehan and her companions, calling her everything from a traitor to a terrorist supporter, and arguing that the death of her son does not give her the right to criticize the war effort. Local supporters of Bush have suggested, among other things, that they unleash a gaggle of skunks on the camp to drive the protesters away; some have pretended to drive their pickup trucks into the crowds, and splashed protesters with mud as they revved their engines. [New York Times, 8/13/2005] Author and media critic Frank Rich will later write that the images of Bush’s motorcade ignoring Sheehan and the other protesters become embarrassing fodder for media comment and criticism. [Rich, 2006, pp. 194] The Times writes, “[Bush’s] five-week sojourn at his 1,600-acre ranch offers the protesters ample opportunity to camp out for extended periods in front of the national media at a time of sharp spikes in the casualties in Iraq, and as public polling data suggests the lowest support for the war since it began.” In a recent television ad paid for by her peace organization Gold Star Families for Peace, Sheehan said: “All I wanted was an hour out of his extended vacation time, but he’s refused to meet with me and the other military families. We just want honest answers.” [New York Times, 8/13/2005]

Tammy Pruett weeps while watching Bush’s presentation. [Source: Jim Watson / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images]The White House presents Tammy Pruett, whose four sons are serving in Iraq, as a counter to antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in Iraq (see August 6, 2005 and After). Unlike Sheehan, Pruett and her family staunchly support the war; also unlike Sheehan, Pruett has not lost any of her sons. Apparently the White House found Pruett after learning of her family’s appearance on CNN in June 2004, where she defended the war effort, and contacted the family a week before the event. “An obviously delighted President Bush,” who has repeatedly refused to meet with Sheehan (see August 12, 2005), flies to Idaho to introduce Pruett to what the Washington Post calls “a boisterous invitation-only audience mostly made up of military families.” Bush tells the audience: “There are few things in life more difficult than seeing a loved one go off to war. And here in Idaho, a mom named Tammy Pruett—I think she’s here—knows that feeling six times over. Tammy has four sons serving in Iraq right now with the Idaho National Guard—Eric, Evan, Greg, and Jeff. Last year, her husband Leon and another son, Eren, returned from Iraq, where they helped train Iraqi firefighters in Mosul. Tammy says this—and I want you to hear this—‘I know that if something happens to one of the boys, they would leave this world doing what they believe, what they think is right for our country. And I guess you couldn’t ask for a better way of life than giving it for something that you believe in.’ America lives in freedom because of families like the Pruetts.” Bush kisses Pruett on the cheek after the speech, then sends her out to talk to the press. [Washington Post, 8/25/2005]Pruetts Offer Condolences to Sheehan, Other Bereaved Families - But the Pruetts are not willing to merely serve as props for the White House’s pro-war agenda. Both Leon and Tammy Pruett are quick to offer tearful condolences to families who have lost loved ones overseas, specifically naming Sheehan. Tammy says while her family supports the war, they do not want to be seen as criticizing those who oppose it. “We don’t feel like we’re out here trying to be a poster family, we’re just proud of our sons,” she says. [MSNBC, 8/24/2005]Careful Staging - The Post notes that the Pruett speech is viewed by White House planners “as a crucial opportunity for Bush to show both compassion and resolve when his conduct of the war is increasingly being publicly questioned, and polls of public support are flirting with Vietnam War-era depths.” The speech and presentation are carefully crafted, with a drum corps playing the themes of each of the five branches of service, and Bush placed before a group of soldiers dressed in fatigues and arrayed in front of a huge red, white, and blue backdrop festooned with photographs of soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and rescue workers beneath the heading “Honoring America’s Soldiers.” The entire event, Knight Ridder reporter William Douglas writes, is designed to “creat[e] a visual link between the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.” [MSNBC, 8/24/2005; Washington Post, 8/25/2005]

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, who earlier criticized the US Army Corps of Engineers’ sole-source contract with Halliburton at a public hearing (see June 27, 2005), is demoted from her position as Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC). Greenhouse, who was known for her steadfast adherence to regulations enforcing fair competition, received high performance ratings at the beginning of her tenure, which began in 1997. But after she began objecting to the contracts being awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root (KBR), her reviews became negative. [New York Times, 8/29/2005; Democratic Policy Committee, 9/16/2005, pp. 8-9 ]

Iraq’s presidential council endorses the final draft of Iraq’s permanent constitution and sends it to the National Assembly. The constitution will be subjected to a referendum vote on October 15 (see October 15, 2005). While the proposed constitution is supported by the Kurdish and Shiite members of the council, the document is bitterly opposed by representatives of the Sunni Arabs, the ethnic Turkomen of northern Iraq, Christians, secular groups, and women. [New York Times, 8/29/2005] The second article of the constitution declares that Islam is the official state religion, and that it will be regarded as “a main source of legislation.” It also states that “no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” Clerics, therefore, would likely sit on the Supreme Court and would have a role in presiding over family disputes like marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The provision is considered an affront to women’s rights since most interpretations of Islamic law afford women substantially fewer rights than men. [New York Times, 8/29/2005; Associated Press, 10/12/2005] Article 25 states that the Iraqi government “shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.” [Associated Press, 10/12/2005] It marks a significant departure in economic policy from the Baathist government, whose constitution stated that “national resources and basic means of production are owned by the people.” [Constitution of Iraq, 1968] Article 110, which deals with oil policy, states: “The federal government and the governments of the producing regions and provinces together will draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop oil and gas wealth to bring the greatest benefit for the Iraqi people, relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment.” Observers note that, while this section states that both the federal government and the regional governments will work together, a subsequent clause appears to contradict this. That clause states: “All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions. In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the region’s law in case of dispute.” [Associated Press, 10/12/2005] Article 115 of the constitution would make it possible for provinces to organize themselves as semi-autonomous federal regions, with their own distinct laws. This means, for example, that regions would be able to negotiate contracts with oil companies on their own and exercise control over a bulk of the oil revenue. [Muttitt, 2005] However, the precise division of authority between the central government and any regional governments is not clearly stated in the document. “All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions,” the document says. “In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the region’s law in case of dispute.” Most of Iraq’s oil is located in either the Kurdish northern region or the Shiite-dominated south. The Sunnis, who have ruled Iraq almost without interruption since 1920 and whose communities lie predominantly in the resource-poor provinces of central and western Iraq, are opposed to this federalist political structure. [Associated Press, 10/12/2005] The final draft of the constitution is missing an article that had appeared in an earlier draft declaring that it is “forbidden for Iraq to be used as a base or corridor for foreign troops” or “to have foreign military bases in Iraq.” [Asia Times, 10/15/2005]

From his ranch in Crawford, President Bush speaks briefly with reporters. Bush first explains that he has spoken with FEMA Director Michael Brown (see Before 9:30am August 28, 2005) and with the governors of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana (see Shortly before 9:30 am August 28, 2005), and Mississippi. He announces that he has already signed disaster declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi. Bush then addresses the residents in the storm’s path: “Hurricane Katrina is now designated a Category 5 hurricane. We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities. I urge all residents to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground. Please listen carefully to instructions provided by state and local officials.” Bush then turns to Iraq, congratulating “the people of Iraq on completing the next step in their transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Bush’s brief statement contains 203 words about the pending Katrina disaster, and 819 words about the new Iraqi constitution. [US President, 9/5/2005]

Author and journalist Melik Kaylan writes an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal advocating the mining of the entire Iraqi border—all 2,250 miles of it. Kaylan writes that if the US turned the entire Iraqi border into a minefield, the Iraqi insurrection could not be replenished with manpower and materiel from Syria and other sources. “Why has nobody publicly debated this idea?” he asks, and says the reason might be “the shock-horror-gasp factor” along with the late Princess Diana’s attempts to ban mines and bad memories of US mining efforts in Vietnam. However, he writes, “once tempers have cooled, it should become clear that of all the unpleasant products of war in Iraq, mining the border offers the least unpleasant.” The 2,250 mines can be laid out according to a strict plan, Kaylan advocates, and removed once hostilities have ended. “The point here is that a precisely ordered minefield is a weapon of peace, rather than war, a deterrent and a stabilizer,” he writes. “When done right, its aim is not to kill or maim but to take a swatch of territory out of the conflict—and to give relief to innocent border-area residents forced, at the point of a gun, to collaborate with infiltrators.” The proposal will not be given serious consideration by US or Iraqi war planners. [Wall Street Journal, 9/17/2005; Foreign Policy, 10/22/2010]

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says: “I think we’re in the end game now.… I think we’re in a six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that’s my own feeling—let alone the presidential one.” Friedman will continue predicting a resolution of the Iraq situation in “the next six months” until at least May 2006 (see May 6-11, 2006). [MSNBC, 9/25/2005; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says: “Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our time.” Friedman will continue predicting a resolution of the Iraq situation in “the next six months” until at least May 2006 (see May 6-11, 2006). [New York Times, 9/28/2005]

Three war contractors for KBR, the firm supplying logistical support for US troops in Iraq and Kuwait, meet in a quiet lounge in London’s Cumberland Hotel. The three men are unaware that federal agents are tailing them. They spend the afternoon drinking and discussing the various bribes they have accepted as kickbacks as a routine part of doing business. KBR procurement manager Stephen Seamans, who, unbeknownst to his colleagues, is wearing a wire for the FBI, wonders whether or not he should return $65,000 in bribes his two fellows, executives from the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co, gave him. One of the two executives, Tamimi operations director Shabbir Khan, tells him to conceal the money by falsifying business records. “Just do the paperwork,” Khan advises. This and other information about KBR war profiteering in Iraq comes from a federal investigation that will begin in late 2007 (see October 2006 and Beyond). [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Dan Senor. [Source: ThinkProgress.org]Fox News analyst Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq [White House, 10/1/2006; Salon, 5/10/2008] , writes an article for the neoconservative magazine Weekly Standard about the upcoming trial of captured Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. Senor writes that the trial will provide “a peek into the depths of human evil and, embarrassingly, if incidentally, into the concurrent indifference of Western nations to Iraqi suffering. Thus far, the accountability of Nuremberg, the Hague, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone has eluded Arab-Muslim leaders. This is about to change.” Senor also says that part of Hussein’s trial strategy will be to attempt to create sympathy for his “humiliation” that will translate into “a spike in the insurgency…” He notes that “an increase in violence is anticipated by Commanding General George Casey too.” [Weekly Standard, 10/2/2005] According to Pentagon documents released as part of the New York Times investigation into the Pentagon propaganda operation surrounding Iraq (see May 9, 2008), Senor routinely asks the advice of Pentagon public relations official Larry Di Rita about what he should say on his television broadcasts, and submits articles such as this to Di Rita for editing directions. [Salon, 5/10/2008]

Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi deputy prime minister and former chair of the country’s Energy Council, says, “In order to make major quantum increases in oil, we need to have production sharing agreements, but that has to wait until after the formation of parliament.” [Reuters, 11/22/2005; Inter Press Service, 11/23/2005]

A report authored by Greg Muttitt of PLATFORM concludes that Iraq would not benefit from an oil policy based on production sharing agreements (PSAs). According to Muttitt, the PSAs would cost Iraq “hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue,” while oil company profits would see annual rates of return “ranging from 42 percent to 62 percent for a small field, or 98 percent to 162 percent for a large field.” Muttitt’s study also warns that PSAs would result in Iraqis forfeiting control of their oil industry to foreign oil companies. For example, Iraq would lose its ability to control the depletion rate of its own oil resources. “As an oil-dependent country, the depletion rate is absolutely key to Iraq’s development strategy, but would be largely out of the government’s control,” Muttitt notes. Furthermore, PSAs, which typically have fixed terms of between 25 and 40 years, often include “stabilization clauses” that grant oil companies immunity from all future laws, regulations, and government policies. If Iraq were to sign such PSAs, future Iraqi governments would be unable to change tax rates or laws regulating labor standards, workplace safety, or the environment. PSA agreements also tend to put the host government at a disadvantage when there is a dispute with the contracted oil company. Most PSAs stipulate that disputes must be resolved in international arbitration tribunals where they are generally presided over by corporate lawyers and trade negotiators who will only consider narrow commercial issues without regard to Iraqi public interest. Muttitt’s report argues that Iraq has several options for developing its oil industry that would be far more beneficial to Iraq than relying on PSAs. One option would be for Iraq to hire specialist companies under short-term technical service contracts to provide expertise only when native expertise is lacking. There is no reason, Muttitt notes, for Iraq to give oil companies full control over the industry when Iraq has a highly-skilled oil sector workforce that is fully capable of managing the country’s oil production. All that’s needed, he says, is for them to receive training on the latest technologies. Until that is achieved, Iraq would be adequately served with a policy based on short-term technical service contracts. Muttitt also argues that Iraq has several options for acquiring the needed capital to jump start the oil sector. Foreign investment is neither the only, nor the most attractive solution for Iraq. He argues that using Iraqi money or borrowing funds would save Iraq billions of dollars in the long term. [Muttitt, 2005]

Joseph Galloway. [Source: National Public Radio]Veteran war correspondent Joseph Galloway, a stern critic of the Iraq policies of the administration and the Pentagon, journeys to the Pentagon for what he believes to be a one-on-one lunch with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The reporter is surprised to find that Rumsfeld has invited four colleagues along to assist him with Galloway: Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army; the director of the Joint Staff, Walter Sharp; and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Larry Di Rita. The highlights of the lunch discussion, which is marked by a series of digressions and tangential conversations, are as follows: Rumsfeld tells Galloway, “I’m not hearing anything like the things you are writing about.” Galloway responds that he often found that people in positions of such power and influence rarely receive the unvarnished truth. Rumsfeld retorts: “Oh, I know that but I talk to lots of soldiers all the time. Why, I have given over 600 town hall meetings and anyone can ask me anything.” Rumsfeld then shifts gears to visit one of Galloway’s favorite topics: the question of whether the US Army is broken. Far from being in poor shape, Rumsfeld asserts, the Army is “light years better than it was four years ago.” Galloway counters that Rumsfeld’s strategies are nonsensical if they result in Army and Marine soldiers being sent in endless forays down the same highways to die by roadside bombs. The US is playing to the insurgency’s strong suit, Galloway argues. Rumsfeld agrees, and says he has instructed the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, to shift the focus from patrolling to “standing up” the Iraqi defense forces. He has told Iraq’s leaders that the US is losing the stomach for the ever-growing casualty count, “and they understand that and agree with it.” Galloway parries Rumsfeld’s talk with a question about the Army sending bill collectors after wounded soldiers who lost limbs in a bombing, or were “overpaid” for combat duty and benefits. Rumsfeld blames the Pentagon’s computer system, and says the problem is being addressed. Rumsfeld agrees with one of Galloway’s columns that lambasted the Pentagon for doing enemy body counts. “We are NOT going to do body counts,” Rumsfeld asserts. Galloway retorts that the Pentagon is indeed doing body counts and releasing them, and has been doing so for a year. If you don’t want to do body counts, Galloway says, then stop doing them. Throughout the conversation, Rumsfeld jots down notes on what he considers to be valid points or criticisms. Galloway writes: “Others at the table winced. They had visions of a fresh shower of the secretary’s famous ‘snowflakes,’ memos demanding answers or action or both.” Before Galloway leaves, Rumsfeld shows him some memorabilia and tells him, “I want you to know that I love soldiers and I care about soldiers. All of us here do.” Galloway replies that concern for the troops and their welfare and safety are his only purpose, “and I intend to keep kicking your butt regularly to make sure you stay focused on that goal.” As Galloway writes, “He grinned and said: ‘That’s all right. I can take it.’” [Knight Ridder, 11/2/2005]

John Murtha during his press conference. [Source: Larry Downing / Reuters]Representative John Murtha (D-PA), one of the most conservative and hawkish Democrats in the House of Representatives and a longtime supporter of the military, stuns opponents and fellow Democrats alike by calling for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Fighting back tears, Murtha, a former US Marine and a decorated Vietnam veteran, says the troops in Iraq suffer from poor equipment and low morale. Moreover, the troops’ presence there now serves as an impediment to Iraqi progress towards stability and self-governance. The war is “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion,” he says, and adds, “Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency.” Islamic insurgents “are united against US forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence.… I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, [Bush] criticized Democrats for criticizing them. This is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public knows it. And lashing out at critics doesn’t help a bit. You’ve got to change the policy.… It’s time to bring [the soldiers] home.” Murtha submits a bill to compel the withdrawal of troops as soon as feasible (see November 17, 2005). Congressional Republicans counter with accusations of cowardice (see November 18-21, 2005) and even siding with terrorists over their country. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) says: “Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut and run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans.” Democratic Leaders Cautious - Democratic leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and campaign chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) react cautiously to Murtha’s call for withdrawal. Pelosi has privately said that she will call for a complete withdrawal of troops in 2006, but does not yet join Murtha in his call for withdrawal, merely saying that he deserves to have “his day.” Emanuel is even more cautious, saying, “Jack Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha.” As for Iraq policy, Emanuel says, “At the right time, we will have a position.” Mishandling of Intelligence - Murtha joins with other Democrats in accusing the administration of deliberately misrepresenting intelligence about Iraq’s WMD and its connections to al-Qaeda. Vice President Cheney has called such accusations “dishonest and reprehensible.” President Bush responds: “I expect there to be criticism. But when Democrats say that I deliberately misled the Congress and the people, that’s irresponsible. They looked at the same intelligence I did, and they voted—many of them voted—to support the decision I made.… So I agree with the vice president.” Asked about the comments, Murtha retorts, “I like guys who got five deferments and [have] never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.” Cheney received five deferments during the Vietnam War which allowed him to sit out the war; Bush was a Texas Air National Guardsman who did not leave the country during that war. Other Democrats say that they were themselves misled about the intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Angry Rhetoric from Both Sides - The White House issues a statement in response to Murtha’s call for a pullout, declaring that Murtha is “endorsing the policy positions of [liberal filmmaker] Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party.” Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) responds that Bush and Cheney “have begun a new campaign of distortion and manipulation. Because of the polls showing that Americans have lost trust in the president and believe he manipulated intelligence before the war, the president and vice president have abandoned any pretense of leading this country and have gone back on the campaign trail.” They could not find weapons of mass destruction, Kennedy says, and “they can’t find the truth, either.” Kennedy’s Senate colleague Ted Stevens (R-AK) responds by accusing Kennedy and other Democrats of attempting to “undermine the people standing abroad by repeatedly calling [Bush] a liar.” House Republican Geoff Davis says Murtha’s statements are “shameful.” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) says that if the US does not prevail in Iraq, it will invite another 9/11-type attack: “Four years have expired without a second attack on our homeland because we’ve aggressively projected America’s fighting forces in the theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) counters that the White House has “shamelessly decided to play politics” over Iraq. “We need a commander in chief, not a campaigner in chief,” Reid says. “We need leadership from the White House, not more whitewashing of the very serious issues confronting us in Iraq.” [Washington Post, 11/18/2005; New York Times, 11/18/2005; New York Sun, 11/18/2005]

Representative John Murtha (D-PA) introduces a bill in the House to compel the redeployment of US troops out of Iraq “at the earliest practicable date.” Murtha introduces the bill in conjunction with his public call for withdrawal (see November 17, 2005). The bill states that “clear, measurable progress towards” a stable economy or a secure populace has not been shown. Additionally, the bill states that it would take so many additional US troops to force stability that the US government would be forced to reinstate the military draft; that “US forces have become the target of the insurgency;… over 80 percent of the Iraqi people want the US forces out of Iraq;… 45 percent of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on US forces are justified; and [therefore] Congress finds it evident that continuing US military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region.” The bill never makes it out of committee. [US House of Representatives, 11/17/2005]

In response to a bill by Representative John Murtha (D-PA) calling for a measured troop withdrawal from Iraq (see November 17, 2005 and November 17, 2005), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a staunch supporter of the war, submits a “stunt resolution” calling for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. The resolution’s entire text reads, “It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.” Hunter and his fellow Republicans never intend for the measure to be passed; Republicans say the resolution was merely intended to show how extreme Murtha’s bill is, while Democrats say it was offered to tie up debate on Murtha’s real legislative offering. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) explains that his party offered the resolution because: “We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat.” The resolution fails 403-3. No Republican, including Hunter, votes for it. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) instructs Democrats not to play into Republicans’ hands by voting for the bill. She later says, “Just when you thought you’d seen it all, the Republicans have stooped to new lows, even for them.” [Associated Press, 11/18/2005; New York Times, 11/19/2005]

Jean Schmidt making her statement on the floor of the House. [Source: Pensito Review]Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH) accuses fellow Representative John Murtha (D-PA) of cowardice. Murtha, an ex-Marine, decorated Vietnam veteran, and longtime military supporter, has called for US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible (see November 17, 2005) and November 17, 2005). Schmidt says she is merely quoting the words of a constituent when she says on the floor of the House: “Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young Marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body—that we will see this through.” Democrats, appalled by Schmidt’s words, boo and shout her down; Democrat Harold Ford (D-TN) charges across the chamber’s center aisle and shouts that Schmidt’s attack is unwarranted. Democrat Martin Meehan (D-MA) shouts: “You guys are pathetic! Pathetic.” The conflict comes during a debate over a Republican “stunt resolution” that calls for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all troops from Iraq (see November 18, 2005). Defending Murtha - Some House Republicans later defend Murtha’s patriotism: Henry Hyde (R-IL) says, “I give him an A-plus as a truly great American.” But Democrats are unforgiving. “This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most respected members of this House, and it is outrageous,” says Jim McGovern (D-MA). In the Senate, John Kerry (D-MA) says, “I won’t stand for the swift-boating of Jack Murtha.” Kerry is referring to false accusations against him launched during the 2004 presidential election by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that challenged his Vietnam record. [Think Progress (.org), 11/18/2005; New York Times, 11/19/2005]Schmidt Withdraws Statement - After the speaker pro tempore, Mike Simpson (R-IL) orders that her words be “taken down” (documented as possible violations of House rules), Schmidt attempts to backpedal: “Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed at any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest that they applied to any member. Most especially the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania. I therefore ask for unanimous consent that my words be withdrawn.” [Jesse Lee, 11/18/2005]Bubp: Never Discussed Murtha with Schmidt - Three days later, Bubp, the reserve Marine colonel and Ohio state representative Schmidt claims to be quoting, says that he never discussed Murtha with Schmidt and would never impugn a fellow Marine’s patriotism. “There was no discussion of him personally being a coward or about any person being a coward,” Bubp says. “The unfortunate thing about all of that is that her choice of words on the floor of the House—I don’t know, she’s a freshman, she had one minute. Unfortunately, they came out wrong.… My message to the folks in Washington, DC, and to all the Congress people up there, is to stay the course. We cannot leave Iraq or cut and run—any terminology that you want to use.… I don’t want to be interjected into this. I wish she never used my name.” [Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/22/2005]

Dr. Peter Feaver. [Source: Georgia State University]President Bush gives what is touted as a major speech on the Iraq war strategy at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The event is heavily stage-crafted, with the strategy document labeled “Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” and the phrase “Plan for Victory” prominently repeated (in what author Frank Rich will later call “Orwellian mitosis”) over the stage and podium. Bush uses the word “victory” 15 times in his speech. The speech itself is not a military strategy proposal, but rather a public relations document based on the work of Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver, who joined the National Security Council as a special adviser in June 2005 to monitor and bolster American public opinion on the war. Feaver, a Navy reservist who has frequently written articles supportive of Bush foreign policies, analyzed poll data from 2003 and 2004 and concluded that the American public would support a war with rising casualties if it believed such a war would ultimately succeed. The speech was written to hammer home the idea (see May 24, 2005) that victory in Iraq is attainable. Other political scientists question both Feaver’s analysis and the ethics of using such tactics to shape public opinion. John Mueller of Ohio State University says that Feaver’s idea would only produce a small, transient rise in public support for the war. Referring to the costs in lives and in dollars, Mueller says, “As the costs go up, support goes down.” “This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency,” says Christopher F. Gelpi, another Duke professor who co-authored the research on American tolerance for casualties. “The Pentagon doesn’t need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion.” The media was not supposed to know about Feaver’s contribution to the “strategy” document; the plan, posted on the White House’s Web site, does not credit Feaver’s work, but the software used to produce the document shows the original author to be “feaver-p.” The White House confirms that Feaver and another NSC staff member, Deputy National Security Adviser Meghan O’Sullivan, wrote the document with assistance from members of O’Sullivan’s staff. The White House insists that the document is an interagency production that reflects the thinking of the entire administration, not just a few NSC officials and staffers. Press secretary Scott McClellan calls the document an unclassified explanation of strategies that have been in use since 2003. Interestingly, Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, who supervises the training of Iraqi troops, says he did not see the document before its public release. [White House, 11/30/2005; New York Times, 12/4/2005; Rich, 2006, pp. 198]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on CBS, “We’ve teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it’s going to come together.” [CBS News, 12/18/2005 ; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

The Iraqi government cuts subsidies on gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and cooking fuel in order to meet an IMF requirement that Iraq allow fuel prices to increase to levels on par with prices elsewhere in the Middle East. The Iraq government agreed to implement this reform, and a number of others, in exchange for having as much as 80 percent of its debts forgiven (see September 29, 2004 and November 22, 2004). The debts had accumulated during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s rolling back of the fuel subsidies is followed by violent protests across the country. The price of cooking fuel immediately increases by about three-fold, while gasoline prices increase by a factor of five. Diesel fuel prices rise about nine-fold. [Associated Press, 12/19/2005; BBC, 12/30/2005; New York Times, 12/31/2005]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on PBS: “We’re at the beginning of, I think, the decisive, I would say six months in Iraq, okay, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately… what Iraqis make of it.” [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman writes: “The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful.” [New York Times, 12/21/2005; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

The IMF’s 24-member executive board approves a standby arrangement for a new $685 million loan for Iraq. The IMF previously provided the country with a $436.3 million emergency post-conflict loan in September 2004 (see September 29, 2004). The approval means that creditor nations will forgive an additional 30 percent of Iraq’s debt, all of which was incurred under the rule of Saddam Hussein. If Iraq fulfills the requirements in the standby arrangement, another 20 percent of its debt will be forgiven (see November 22, 2004). [Associated Press, 12/23/2005; Agence France-Presse, 12/23/2005] One of the reforms required by the stand-by arrangement is that Iraq work with the IMF on the drafting of an oil law to be implemented by the end of 2006. [Bretton Woods Project, 1/23/2006] The agreement states that Iraq needs to “draft a new petroleum law in line with the new constitution and international best practices, thereby defining the fiscal regime for oil and establishing the contractual framework for private investment in the sector.” It adds that IMF staff have underscored “the need to press ahead with structural fiscal reforms,” which include “the move forward toward the commercialization of oil-related state enterprises, and the drafting of a new petroleum law.” [International Monetary Fund, 12/7/2005, pp. 18 ]

For the entire fiscal year of 2006, the US grants the new Iraqi military only $3 billion, which is less than what the US military spends in Iraq every two weeks. According to the Iraq Study Group, this results in a major shortage of equipment for the Iraqi military that renders them incapable of carrying out missions. [Iraq Study Group, 2006, pp. 13 ]

KBR subcontractor Stephen Seamans and his business crony, Shabbir Khan of the Saudi Arabian conglomerate Tamimi Global Co, are arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into war profiteering by KBR and its subcontractors (see October 2006 and Beyond). Khan is convicted of lying to federal agents about the kickbacks he provided Seamans (see February 20, 2008, October 2005, October 2002, April 2003, and June 2003), and will serve 51 months in prison. Seamans pleads guilty to charges stemming from the same business deals, and serves a year and a day in prison. Seamans, an Air Force veteran, once taught ethics to junior KBR employees. In December, during his sentencing hearing, he says he is sorry for taking the bribes, “It is not the way that Americans do business.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Farid Ghadry. [Source: Committee on the Present Danger]Farid Ghadry, the president of the Washington-based Reform Party of Syria (see October 2001), “wants to be the [Ahmed] Chalabi of Syria,” warns Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Chalabi played a key role in the US’s attempt to bring about regime change in Iraq, and was the neoconservatives’ choice to lead Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (see 2002-2003). Perthes says, “Chalabi is a role model for Ghadry.” [ABC News, 1/12/2006] Ghadry, like Chalabi, is a rich Arab exile with strong connections to Washington neoconservatives who wants to overthrow the Ba’athist dictator of his native country—in this case, Bashir Assad. Ghadry says that even though there doesn’t seem to be a strong impetus to invade Syria any time soon in Washington, Syria needs to be targeted, and soon. In February 2005, he said, “Maybe we don’t have weapons of mass destruction. But there’s reason enough to help. It’s important to free Syria because Syria could be on the avant-garde of helping the US win the war on terror.” Ghadry has taken pains to distance himself from the inevitable comparisons with his Iraqi counterpart, even sending one mass e-mail titled “I am not Ahmed Chalabi.” But like Chalabi, he has cultivated friends and colleagues within the American political and business communities; [Slate, 2/7/2005] in the US, where he is known as “Frank” Ghadry, he once presented himself as Lebanese instead of Syrian, and has owned a number of businesses, including a small defense contracting firm and a failed Washington coffee-shop chain called Hannibal’s. [Washington Business Journal, 10/4/1996; Business Forward, 3/2000] He is charming, comfortable with Westerners, and has long supported the idea of peaceful co-existence with Israel. [Slate, 2/7/2005] For instance, in May 2007, Ghadry, a member of the right-wing American Israel Public Affairs Committee, will write, “As a Syrian and a Muslim, I have always had this affinity for the State of Israel. As a businessman and an advocate of the free economic system of governance, Israel to me represents an astounding economic success in the midst of so many Arab failures.… While many Arabs view Israel as a sore implant, I view it as a blessing.” [Vanity Fair, 3/2007; Farid Ghadry, 5/5/2007]Ties to US Neoconservatives - Upon creating the Reform Party of Syria, Ghadry told reporters that Chalabi provided him with a template for his own plans for Syria: “Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria.” And in 2005, Ghadry discussed his agenda with Chalabi, a discussion which took place in the living room of powerful US neoconservative and Chalabi sponsor Richard Perle, who, like Ghadry, supports enforced regime change in Syria. [Boston Globe, 12/13/2005] Later, Ghadry joined the Committee on the Present Danger, a group of mostly right wing politicians and think-tank fellows, and which boasts as members such prominent neoconservatives as Newt Gingrich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and James Woolsey. [Slate, 2/7/2005] He is particularly close to Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, who serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs [Syria News Wire, 2/19/2006] and heads of the State Department’s Iran-Syria Operations Group, tasked with planning strategies to “democratize” the two nations. [Vanity Fair, 3/2007] Cheney ensured that Ghadry’s group received some of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the “Middle East Partnership Initiative,” which contributes to opposition groups throughout the region, [Iran Solidarity, 11/5/2006] and has coordinated at least one meeting, in February 2006, between Ghadry and senior Bush administration officials, including officials from Vice President Cheney’s office, the National Security Council, and the Pentagon. [Washington Post, 3/26/2005] Ghadry describes notorious neoconservative political operator Michael Ledeen as “my friend.” [National Review, 3/2/2005] He writes frequent screeds warning of dire consequences to the world if Assad remains in power, which often get picked up in right-wing media outlets such as Front Page and the Washington Times. And, like Chalabi, Ghadry says that once the US moves against Syria, it will be a virtual cakewalk: though Ghadry hasn’t lived in Syria since the 1960s, he says he has intimate knowledge of the Syrian society and culture, and he knows the Syrian people will welcome their US liberators. Syria has, he says, “good dissidents, who understand the United States, can work with the United States, and can help bring about major change.” [Slate, 2/7/2005] Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway wasn’t so sure, writing in December 2005, “Chalabi… is often accused of seducing the administration with false intelligence into invading Iraq. But the fact is that the Bush administration desperately wanted to be seduced. If you are feeling charitable, you can say that Chalabi, having lived in exile for so many years, may just have been out of touch with the real situation in Iraq. But one suspects that Farid Ghadry may be no better informed about his homeland than was Chalabi.” [Boston Globe, 12/13/2005]Refusal to Work With Other Dissidents - A Syrian news site observes in February 2006 that Ghadry’s plans for Syria are made more difficult by his refusal to work with other dissident groups because, according to one dissident leader, Husam Ad-Dairi, Ghadry “only wanted to be a leader.” Another dissident Syrian, Riad At-Turk, calls Ghadry’s idea of opposition “nonsense.” Ad-Dairi says, “Ghadry did not split off from the [Syrian National Council, an umbrella organization of dissident groups] because we are Ba’athists or Islamists. He split off because he was not willing to be part of the group; he only wanted to be a leader. He wanted to start a Syrian government in exile with 19 people in Washington DC. Who does that represent? So we opposed it.” Ghadry will later attack Ad-Dairi, At-Turk, and other dissidents, widely considered some of the most liberal in the disparate dissident movements, “Stalinists” and accuse them of supporting al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. [Syrian Comment, 1/30/2006; Syria News Wire, 2/19/2006]Ties to Abramoff? - Ghadry’s hopes to lead Syria may be tainted by his apparent ties to GOP lobbyist and convicted criminal Jack Abramoff. In January 2006, the Reform Party of Syria’s headquarters were located very near the offices of Abramoff’s lobbying firm, Middle Gate Ventures, which was apparently partnered with the Reform Party. Middle East expert Joshua Landis called the group “a front organization for Israeli interests in the Levant… supported by an impressive constellation of neoconservative stars. Regime change, effected by a US invasion and occupation of Syria and Lebanon, is the one and only item at the top of this gang’s agenda, and it comes as no surprise that Abramoff’s ill-gotten gains went to funding it.” [Syrian Comment, 1/11/2006]

A federal appeals court refuses to block the forced redeployment of a California National Guardsman under the Army’s so-called “stop-loss” program (see August 2004). The appeals court finds that the right of the plaintiff, known for purposes of the lawsuit as “John Doe,” were not violated. “[T]he ‘stop-loss’ order extending Doe’s enlistment is a valid exercise of presidential power” authorized by a federal law, and that law neither violates the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of due process of law nor is an improper delegation of congressional power,” writes Circuit Judge Stephen Trott in a unanimous three-judge opinion. Trott also finds that the “stop-loss” order does not conflict with other sections of federal law, and even if it did, it would override such laws. The appeals court upholds a similar finding of a lower court from March 2005. Doe’s attorney, Michael Sorgen, had argued that without a Congressional declaration of war, the president’s power to force soldiers to serve indefinitely violates the Constitutional separation of powers. [Oakland Tribune, 1/14/2006]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on the Oprah Winfrey Show: “I think that we’re going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool’s errand.” [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on CBS: “I think we’re in the end game there, in the next three to six months… We’ve got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they’re going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they’re not, in which case I think the bottom’s going to fall out.” [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

According to government and political sources, the Iraqi minister for national security sends a report to the Iraqi government saying that the security of the “Golden Mosque” in Samarra was breached. The mosque is considered to be sacred to Shiite Muslims all over the world. [BBC, 2/22/2006; Reuters, 3/2/2006]

Major General Paul Eaton, who retired last month after being in charge of training new Iraqi military personnel, says the Bush administration’s strategy to use those new Iraqi troops to replace departing American troops was crippled from the beginning. Eaton says that the replacement program was never given the planning, funding, or staffing it needed to progress. The first year of the occupation was a critical time, Eaton says, and the US and Iraqi military might be much closer to President Bush’s goal of Iraqi forces “standing up” as US forces “stand down” had so much of that first year not been lost. Former military officials interviewed by the New York Times agree with Eaton’s assessment, as do a number of civilian officials involved in US operations in Iraq at the time. Eaton was replaced as the senior US official in charge of training Iraqi troops by Lieutenant General David Petraeus. Eaton began his yearlong stint on May 9, 2003, and now recalls: “I was very surprised to receive a mission so vital to our exit strategy so late. I would have expected this to have been done well before troops crossed the line of departure. That was my first reaction: ‘We’re a little late here.’” Eaton was told that training Iraqi troops was fifth on the priority list for Iraqi security forces, behind a civil defense corps, police, border guards, and guards for government and commercial facilities. “We set out to man, train, and equip an army for a country of 25 million—with six men,” Eaton recalls. He worked into the fall of 2003 with what he calls “a revolving door of individual loaned talent that would spend between two weeks and two months.” He never received even half of the 250 professional staff members he was promised. Between the chaos that ensued immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the decision by Coalition Provisional Agency head L. Paul Bremer to dissolve the Iraqi army (see May 23, 2003), and the insurgency that arose shortly thereafter, Eaton and his small staff were never able to build the army they had hoped. Perhaps the worst blow was the wholesale dissolution of the Iraqi army. This left Eaton to train an entire military force essentially from scratch, without any Iraqi noncommissioned officers. New York Times reporter Thom Shanker observes, “Training an army without noncommissioned officers to serve as drill sergeants is like pitching a tent without poles.” [New York Times, 2/11/2006]

In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends a Pentagon program that has been planting pro-US stories (see September 2004-September 2006) in the Iraqi press. “The US military command, working closely with the Iraqi government and the US embassy, has sought nontraditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate; for example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor, and the contractor allegedly paying someone to print a story—a true story—but paying to print a story. For example, the resulting explosion of critical press stories then causes everything, all activity, all initiative, to stop, just frozen. Even worse, it leads to a chilling effect for those who are asked to serve in the military public affairs field.” [Council of Foreign Relations, 2/17/2006]

The Golden Mosque, before and after the bombing. [Source: Associated Press] (click image to enlarge)The Al-Askari or Golden Mosque, in Samarra, Iraq, is partially destroyed in a bombing attack that devastates the ancient shrine. The mosque is one of the holiest of Shi’ite sites. The attacks are carried out by about a dozen men in paramilitary uniforms who enter the shrine, handcuff four guards sleeping in a back room, place a bomb in the dome of the mosque, and detonate it. [New York Times, 2/22/2006; Radio Free Europe, 2/12/2007] The devastating attack on one of Shi’a Islam’s holiest sites prompts off a wave of Shi’ite attacks on Sunni mosques, Sunni citizens, and even US occupiers that eventually takes over 10,000 Iraqi lives and brings the country closer to full-blown civil war. [Washington Post, 6/13/2004] Some local officials say that the bombers wore the uniforms of Iraqi security forces. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari says that the attack was possibly the result of “infiltration” of Iraqi security forces. The four guards found handcuffed will later be arrested as suspects in the bombing as well as 10 men dressed as Iraqi police commandos. [Washington Post, 2/23/2006] The Iraqi government will blame the al-Qaeda faction in Iraq for the bombings, though that organization’s responsibility for the bombings remains unclear. [Reuters, 6/13/2007] One leading Iraqi Shi’ite politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, lays partial blame for the bombing on the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, saying that Khalilzad’s public comments on death squads operating within Iraq’s Shi’ite-led Interior Ministry were a provocation to the bombing. [New York Times, 2/22/2006] Shi’ite and Sunni politicians exchange accusations over the bombings, with Shi’ite lawmakers saying that the government ignored warnings about the attacks, and Sunnis accusing Shi’ites of bombing their own shrine to exacerbate discords between the two religious factions. [Reuters, 3/2/2006] President Bush promises to rebuild the mosque. [CNN News, 2/22/2006] But the shrine is, as of mid-2007, never rebuilt, partly because of disagreements between Sunnis and Shi’ites as to how to go about the rebuilding process. [Radio Free Europe, 2/12/2007] The shrine will be bombed again 17 months later (see June 13, 2007), setting off another wave of violent reprisals.

US Army Major General Rick Lynch speaks to reporters in Baghdad and claims that there was no warning in advance about a possible attack on the “Golden Mosque” in Samarrah. This directly contradicts claims from internal Iraqi government sources that say the national security ministry sent a warning to the Iraqi government about a breach of security at the mosque weeks before the bombing occurred (see Early February 2006). [Washington File, 2/23/2003]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on NBC: “I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.” [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

Conservative columnist George Will writes that he is reconsidering his earlier support for the Iraq occupation. Will writes that the Bush administration’s relentless rhetoric of victory “just around the corner” and the necessity to “stay the course” is increasingly based on supposition and wishful thinking, and is contradicted by the facts. “Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation,” Will writes. “And after two elections and a referendum on its constitution, Iraq barely has a government.” The government is riddled with corruption that, in correspondent Lawrence Kaplan’s words, “would have made South Vietnam’s kleptocrats blush.… [C]orruption has helped drive every public service measure—electricity, potable water, heating oil—down below its prewar norm.” The country is torn apart by sectarian violence that cannot be dismissed or negated by US rhetoric. Will concludes that “all three components of the ‘axis of evil’—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—[are] more dangerous than they were when that phrase was coined in 2002.” [Washington Post, 3/2/2006]

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says that the violence in Iraq has reached the point of civil war and that his country is nearing a “point of no return.” Allawi, who leads a 25-member coalition of representatives in the Iraqi National Assembly, says: “It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more.” Answering claims that Iraq is not locked in such a conflict, Allawi says, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” General George Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq, contradicts Allawi, claiming, “We’re a long way from civil war.” Vice President Dick Cheney, part of an administration that is marking the three-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by US and coalition forces (see March 19, 2003) by presenting a unified front, echoes Casey’s remarks, and adds that the war must be viewed in a broader context. “It’s not just about Iraq, it’s not about just today’s situation in Iraq,” he says. “It’s about where we’re going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East and whether or not there’s going to be hope and the development of the governments that are responsive to the will of the people, that are not a threat to anyone, that are not safe havens for terror or manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction.” Cheney blames the news media for the perception that the war is going badly: “I think it has less to do with the statements we’ve made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there’s a constant sort of perception, if you will, that’s created because what’s newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad,” he says. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compares the Iraq war to the two great conflicts of his generation, World War II and the Cold War. “Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis,” he writes in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. “It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination.” [New York Times, 3/19/2006]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admits that the US has committed “thousands” of “tactical errors in Iraq,” but made “the right strategic decision” to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. “This could have gone that way, or that could have gone this way,” she says of the war and the subsequent occupation. “I am quite certain there are going to be dissertations written about the mistakes of the Bush administration,” she says. “I know we’ve made tactical errors—thousands of them, I’m sure. But when you look back in history, what will be judged is did you make the right strategic decisions. I believe strongly that it was the right strategic decision, that Saddam [Hussein] had been a threat to the international community long enough.” Retired General 'Outraged' - Retired General Greg Newbold calls Rice’s statement “an outrage,” and says, “It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting” (see April 9, 2006). [BBC, 3/31/2006; CNN, 4/1/2006]Rice Backpedals - When asked to give specific examples of those “tactical mistakes,” Rice backpedals, saying: “First of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally. Let me be very clear about that. I wasn’t sitting around counting.… The point I was making… is that, of course, if you’ve ever made decisions, you’ve undoubtedly made mistakes. The important thing is to get the big strategic decisions right, and that I am confident that the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and for democracy is the right decision.… The other point I was making to the questioner is that I’m enough of a historian to know that things that looked brilliant at the moment turn out in historical perspective to be mistakes, and the things that look like mistakes turn out to have been right decisions.” [CNN, 4/1/2006]

The newly released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq says that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the 9/11 attacks. The NIE is compiled from information provided by the 16 American intelligence agencies, and written by the US government’s National Intelligence Council. The NIE is released internally in April 2006, but portions are made public on September 24, 2006. It is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] Robert Hutchings, the council’s former chairman, says, "The war in Iraq has exasperated the global war on terror." [Toronto Daily News, 9/24/2006] The White House has issued its own reports touting its successes against Islamist terrorism and predicting that such activities will dwindle in the coming months. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] The NIE report says, "[T]he Iraq war has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists…and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives. …[T]he Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al-Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea. Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and civilian lives lost. Even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third." Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the British secret service (MI5), agrees. She will say in early 2007, "Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. The threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation." [Independent, 3/1/2007] Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says the report should "put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war." [ABC News, 9/25/2006]

Retired Marine Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, until October 2002 the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is another in a small but vocal group of current and retired generals voicing public dissent against the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. Newbold writes an op-ed for Time magazine, and leads off by saying that after Vietnam, he and other career military officers determined never again to “stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it.” But, Newbold writes, it happened again. He takes responsibility for his own actions in planning for the invasion of Iraq, but notes that “[i]nside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots’ rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda.” Newbold retired from the military in late 2002, “in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11’s tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I’ve been silent long enough.” The cost of the Bush administration’s “flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood,” he writes, and that blood debt drives him to speak out. A Justifiable War - Invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do, Newbold says, to take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And though invading Iraq was unnecessary and wrong, he says, the US cannot now just withdraw precipitously: “It would send a signal, heard around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists’ message that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to change my position.” Outrage - Newbold writes of his deep anger at the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who recently said that “we” made the “right strategic decisions,” but made thousands of “tactical errors” (see March 31-April 1, 2006). Newbold calls that statement “an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.” Instead, he writes: “What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures.… My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.” Many of the Pentagon’s highest-ranking generals bear their own blame, Newbold writes, in “act[ing] timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction.” Some few actually believed the rationale for war, others were intimidated, and many believed that their sense of duty and obedience precluded their speaking out. “The consequence of the military’s quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.” Many members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, “defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight.” Many media reporters, editors, and pundits ignored the warnings and instead played up the rationale for war. New Visions, New Strategies - The first thing to do, says Newbold, is to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld along with “many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach.” The US owes their troops, living and dead, a debt of gratitude and the responsibility to “construct a unified strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve it.” More generals and others in positions of leadership need to speak out, Newbold concludes, and make sure that we as a nation are not “fooled again.” [Time, 4/9/2006]

The Washington Post reports that leaked documents show the US military is conducting a propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. According to the Post, “The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the [Iraq] war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” According to Col. Derek Harvey, who has been a top advisor on Iraq intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although al-Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted some deadly bombing attacks, they remain “a very small part of the actual numbers…. Our own focus on al-Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will—made him more important than he really is, in some ways.” Since at least 2004, the US military has manipulated the Iraq media’s coverage of Zarqawi in an effort to turn Iraqis against the insurgency. But leaked documents also explicitly list the “US Home Audience” as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign. Additionally, sections of leaked military briefings show that the US media was directly used to influence view of al-Zarqawi. For instance, one document notes that a “selective leak” about al-Zarqawi was made to New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, which resulted in a 2004 front page story about a letter supposedly written by al-Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq (see February 9, 2004). [Washington Post, 4/10/2006] The Daily Telegraph reported in 2004 that “senior diplomats in Baghdad claim that the letter was almost certainly a hoax.” The Telegraph also reported the US was buying extremely dubious intelligence that exaggerated al-Zarqawi’s role and was treating it as fact, even in policy decisions (see October 4, 2004). [Daily Telegraph, 10/4/2004] One US military briefing from 2004 states, “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response” and lists three methods: “Media operations,” “Special Ops (626)” (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite US military unit) and “PSYOP,” meaning psychological operations and propaganda. One internal US military briefing concluded that the “al-Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date… primarily for the Iraqi audience but also with the international audience.” It is supposedly US military policy not to aim psychological operations at Americans, but there appears to be no punishment for the violation of this policy in the wake of this media report. [Washington Post, 4/10/2006]

Six of the generals named by the New York Times as part of the ‘Generals’ Revolt: clockwise from the upper left, Paul Eaton, Anthony Zinni, Gregory Newbold, Charles Swannack, John Riggs, and John Batiste. [Source: New York Times]Three eminent retired generals call for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, citing his failure of leadership with the Iraq occupation. These three, with several other retired flag officers, will soon be labeled as part of the so-called “Generals’ Revolt” by the media. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 157-158]Rumsfeld Accused of 'Arrogance,' 'Mismanagement' - On NPR, General John Riggs says of Rumsfeld, “I think he should step aside and let someone step in who can be more realistic.” Rumsfeld and his staff “only need military advice when it satisfies their agenda.… That’s why I think he should resign.” Riggs says that he supported the invasion of Iraq, but accuses Rumsfeld and his staff of “arrogance” and “micro/mismanagement.” [National Public Radio, 4/13/2006]Need for 'Teamwork,' Mutual Respect - Major General John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq until his retirement in 2005, tells CNN, “I think we need a fresh start” at the top of the Pentagon. “We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork.” [Washington Post, 4/13/2006]'Too Much Baggage' - Retired Major General Charles Swannack, Jr, the former commander of the 82nd Airborne, tells CNN, “I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him.” Swannack continues: “Specifically, I feel he has micromanaged the generals who are leading our forces there.… And I believe he has culpability associated with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and, so, rather than admitting these mistakes, he continually justifies them to the press… and that really disallows him from moving our strategy forward.” [CNN, 4/14/2006] Swannack tells a New York Times reporter: “We need to continue to fight the global war on terror and keep it off our shores. But I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.” [New York Times, 4/14/2006]'Floodgates' of Criticism Beginning to Open, Say Other Generals - Other retired generals, such as Marine Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson, expect the backlash against Rumsfeld to continue. He says that many current and retired flag officers “are hugely frustrated,” in part because Rumsfeld gave the impression that “military advice was neither required nor desired” in the planning for the Iraq war. Gregson, who refuses to express his own feelings about Rumsfeld’s leadership, says he senses much anger among Americans over the administration’s handling of the war, and believes the continuing criticism from military professionals will fuel that anger as the November elections approach. [Washington Post, 4/13/2006] “Are the floodgates opening?” another retired Army general asks, drawing a connection between the complaints and the fact that Bush’s second term ends in less than three years. “The tide is changing, and folks are seeing the end of this administration.” [New York Times, 4/14/2006]

After several of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s former generals go public with devastating critiques of Rumsfeld’s strategies and planning in Iraq in what comes to be nicknamed the “Generals’ Revolt,” Rumsfeld determines to use the Pentagon’s “military analysts” (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond) to counter the storm of negative publicity. He has his aides summon a clutch of analysts for a briefing with him (see April 18, 2006); his office reminds one aide that “the boss” wants the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.” Pentagon officials help two Fox analysts, former generals Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely, write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal entitled “In Defense of Donald Rumsfeld.” Vallely sends an e-mail to the Pentagon, “Starting to write it now,” and soon thereafter adds, “Any input for the article will be much appreciated.” Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwards Vallely a list of talking points and specifics. Shortly thereafter, a Pentagon official reports, “Vallely is going to use the numbers.” But on April 16, the New York Times, which has learned of the plan, publishes a front-page story about it, sending Pentagon officials into damage-control mode. They describe the session with McInerney and Vallely as “routine,” and issue internal directives to keep communications with analysts “very formal.” One official warns subordinates, “This is very, very sensitive now.” [New York Times, 4/20/2008; Washington Post, 4/21/2008]

David Grange. [Source: CNN]CNN airs commentary from three of its “independent military analysts,” some of whom will later be cited as participants in the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). The analysts are retired Army Brigadier General James “Spider” Marks (whom CNN will later fire for conflicts of interest—see July 2007), retired Air Force Major General Donald Shepperd, and retired US Army Brigadier General David Grange. The topic is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and whether he should resign. After Marks confirms that Rumsfeld repeatedly refused requests from field commanders to send more troops into Iraq during critical battlefield moments (see April 16, 2006), CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer raises the issue of other retired generals calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation. Grange - Grange dismisses the resignation demands as coming from “a small number of general officers…” Grange says he does not have a close relationship with Rumsfeld, but admits that he participates in “occasional” briefings with Rumsfeld and Pentagon officials. Grange says “it would be inappropriate [for Rumsfeld] to step down right now,” and adds that it really isn’t the generals’ business to make any such recommendations. Shepperd - Blitzer plays the commentary of retired Army Major General Paul Eaton, who blames Rumsfeld for not putting “enough boots on the ground to prosecute” the Iraq war and has also called for Rumsfeld’s resignation, then asks Shepperd for his commentary. Shepperd, one of the most reliable of the Pentagon’s “independent analysts” (see June 24-25, 2005), says while Rumsfeld made some “misjudgments,” he should not resign. Like Grange, he questions the “propriety” of the retired generals’ speaking out on the subject. “It steps over, in my opinion, the line of the role of military general officers, active or retired, calling for the resignation of a duly appointed representative of the government by a duly elected government. That’s the problem I have with all of this. And it’s hard to have a rational discussion because you quickly get into, is the war going well or not, do we or do we not have enough troops, when the question is one of propriety about these statements.” Marks - Marks adds his voice to the chorus, saying that “it’s not the place of retired general officers or anyone to make that statement.…[T]he country’s at war. You need to rally around those doing their best to prosecute it.” Though Marks stands with both Grange and Shepperd in defending Rumsfeld from calls for his resignation, he does note that he retired from the Army in part because of Rumsfeld’s cavalier treatment of two of his close friends, retired General Eric Shinseki (see February 25, 2003 and February 27, 2003) and General David McKiernan. [CNN, 4/16/2006]

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviews one of its military analysts, retired Army General James “Spider” Marks. Blitzer asks Marks if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ever rejected “recommendations from military commanders for more troops.” Marks replies: “Sure. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that’s been documented if you read General [Tommy] Franks’s book [American Soldier], and the current book, Cobra II [by Michael Gordon and another military analyst, Bernard Trainor], indicates very, very clearly, and in fact, that is in fact what happened. We requested the 1st Cavalry Division. That was denied. At a very critical point in the war, I might say. The metric that was established then was success against the Republican Guard and Saddam [Hussein]‘s forces when clearly the desired end state was what’s going to happen after the forces have been dealt with, and what do you do when you’ve got this military presence in Iraq. Clearly, the presence of more combat forces on the ground would have been needed.” [CNN, 4/16/2006] Later, during a Pentagon briefing of a gathering of military analysts, Rumsfeld will claim that he never denied any such troop increases, but that commanders such as Marks refused to accept additional troops (see Late December, 2006).

Smarting from the media criticism sparked by the “Generals’ Revolt” and the subsequent revelation of Pentagon attempts to manipulate the media in response (see April 14-16, 2006), about 17 military analysts (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond) meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace. The subject, according to a transcript of the session, is how to marginalize war critics and pump up public support for the war. (Only Rumsfeld and Pace are identified by name in the transcript.) One analyst says bluntly: “I’m an old intel guy. And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops [psychological operations]. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’” Rumsfeld cuts the analyst off with a sarcastic comment: “What are you, some kind of a nut? You don’t believe in the Constitution?” Rumsfeld’s words draw laughter. Few of the participants discuss any of the actual criticism from the former generals. 'Illegal or Immoral'? - Interestingly, Rumsfeld acknowledges that he has been warned that his “information operations” are possibly “illegal or immoral.” He retorts: “This is the first war that’s ever been run in the 21st century in a time of 24-hour news and bloggers and internets and emails and digital cameras and Sony cams and God knows all this stuff.… We’re not very skillful at it in terms of the media part of the new realities we’re living in. Every time we try to do something someone says it’s illegal or immoral, there’s nothing the press would rather do than write about the press, we all know that. They fall in love with it. So every time someone tries to do some information operations for some public diplomacy or something, they say oh my goodness, it’s multiple audiences and if you’re talking to them, they’re hearing you here as well and therefore that’s propagandizing or something.” [US Department of Defense, 4/18/2006 ]Iraq Losses 'Relative' in Comparison to 9/11 - The analysts, one after the other, tell Rumsfeld how “brilliant” and “successful” his war strategy is, and blame the news media for shaping the public’s negative opinion about the war. One participant says, “Frankly, from a military point of view, the penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes [referring to the 9/11 attacks], is relative.” An analyst says: “This is a wider war. And whether we have democracy in Iraq or not, it doesn’t mean a tinker’s damn if we end up with the result we want, which is a regime over there that’s not a threat to us.” Rumsfeld agrees with the assessments. The biggest danger, the analysts agree, is not in Iraq, but in the public perceptions. The administration will suffer grave political damage if the perception of the war is not altered. “America hates a loser,” one analyst says. 'Crush These People' - Most of the session centers on ways Rumsfeld can reverse the “political tide.” One analyst urges Rumsfeld to “just crush these people,” and assures him that “most of the gentlemen at the table” would enthusiastically support him if he did. “You are the leader,” the analyst tells Rumsfeld. “You are our guy.” Another analyst suggests: “In one of your speeches you ought to say, ‘Everybody stop for a minute and imagine an Iraq ruled by al-Zarqawi.’ And then you just go down the list and say, ‘All right, we’ve got oil, money, sovereignty, access to the geographic center of gravity of the Middle East, blah, blah, blah.’ If you can just paint a mental picture for Joe America to say, ‘Oh my God, I can’t imagine a world like that.’” Several of the analysts want to know what “milestone” they should cite as the next goal; they want to, as one puts it, “keep the American people focused on the idea that we’re moving forward to a positive end.” The suggestion is to focus on establishing a new and stable Iraqi government. Another analyst notes, “When you said ‘long war,’ you changed the psyche of the American people to expect this to be a generational event.” They are also keenly interested in how to push the idea of a war with Iran. When the meeting ends, an obviously pleased Rumsfeld takes the entire group and shows them treasured keepsakes from his life. Desired Results - The results are almost immediate. The analysts take to the airwaves and, according to the Pentagon’s monitoring system (see 2005 and Beyond), repeat almost verbatim the Pentagon’s talking points: that Rumsfeld is consulting “frequently and sufficiently” with his generals; that Rumsfeld is not “overly concerned” with the criticisms of his leadership; and that their briefing focused “on more important topics at hand,” including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government. Days later, Rumsfeld will write himself a memo distilling the analysts’ advice into bullet points. Two are underlined: “Focus on the Global War on Terror—not simply Iraq. The wider war—the long war” and “Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.” 'Total Disrespect' - At least one analyst is not pleased. ABC’s William Nash, a retired general, will recall, “I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions.” [New York Times, 4/20/2008]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within a matter of months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on CNN: “Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don’t, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we’re in the end game in the sense it’s going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there’s an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us.” [CNN, 4/23/2006; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

Many of the retired military officers who appear on television news shows as “independent media analysts” are willing participants in the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). However, not all are as compliant as the Pentagon would like, and as a result, they are denied the kinds of access that other, more “reliable” analysts receive. One analyst, Greg Kittfield, writes a cover story for the National Journal that features criticism by several retired generals of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In return, Pentagon official Bryan Whitman e-mails his colleagues, saying, “Given this cover story by Kittfield, I don’t think we need to find any time for Kittfield on the Secretary’s calender.” [Salon, 5/9/2008]

The US embassy in Baghdad under construction. [Source: London Times]A US Inspector General’s report into reconstruction in Iraq finds that although $22 billion had been spent, water, sewage, and electricity infrastructure still operate at prewar levels. Oil production is also significantly below prewar levels. Task Force Shield, a $147 million to train Iraqi security personnel to protect key oil and electrical sites failed to meet its goals. A fraud investigation is under way to find out why. Less than half the water and electricity projects have been completed and only six of 150 planned health clinics have been completed. By contrast, the US embassy under construction in Baghdad is the only big US building project in Iraq on time and within budget. The embassy, estimated to cost $592 million, will consist of 21 large buildings instead a 102-hectare (42-acre) site, and will be bigger than the small nation of Vatican City. The London Times comments, “The question puzzles and enrages a city: how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?” [London Times, 5/3/2006]

Continuing his trend of predicting a resolution in Iraq within six months—a trend that has been ongoing since at least November 2003 (see May 6-11, 2006)—New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman says on MSNBC’s Hardball, “Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this play out.” [MSNBC, 5/12/2006; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 5/16/2006]

Harper’s journalist Ken Silverstein names a former CIA Baghdad station chief in an online post at the magazine’s website. The chief, whose name is Gerry Meyer according to Silverstein, wrote alarming reports about the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency (see August 30, 2003 and November 10, 2003) and was later forced out of his position in circumstances that are unclear (see (Late December 2003)). [Harper's, 5/18/2006]

Nouri al-Maliki. [Source: Truthdig.com]The first permanent government in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is sworn in to office. Iraq’s prime minister is Shi’ite leader Nouri al-Maliki (sometimes known as Jawad al-Maliki), the Bush administration’s choice to run the new Iraqi government. Sunni lawmakers and leaders largely refuse to participate in the new government, and many Sunnis walk out of the installation proceedings. Al-Maliki has appointed mostly fellow Shi’ites to run the various ministries of government, a makeup that reflects the strong Shi’ite majority of votes cast in the December 15 parliamentary elections. President Bush says the US government is fully supportive of the new government: “The United States and freedom-loving nations around the world will stand with Iraq as it takes its place among the world’s democracies and as an ally in the war on terror.” The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, says the new government is expected to spur change that might “allow adjustments in terms of size, composition and mission of [US] forces.” While US forces may undergo occasional “tactical increases here and there,” Khalilzad says, the new government will have a “positive effect.… Strategically, we’re going to be in the direction of downsizing our forces.” [CNN, 5/20/2006] Reactions from US political and military observers are mixed. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes that the biggest difference between al-Maliki and the former interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jafari, is that even though both are from the same Shi’ite faction, the Dawa party, al-Maliki can be expected to show some independence from Iran. Iran tried mightily to keep al-Jafari in office, Ignatius writes, and the new government’s choice of al-Maliki as prime minister shows that Iraq’s political leaders are “standing up for a unified Iraq.” However, “[t]o succeed, Maliki must mobilize that desire for unity to break the power of the militias and insurgent groups.” Khalilzad celebrates al-Maliki’s independence from Iran, and notes that even though al-Maliki spent some years in exile in Iran, “he felt he was threatened by them” because of his political independence, and later moved to Syria. “He sees himself as an Arab” and an Iraqi nationalist, Khalilzad explains. Kurdish leaders cautiously welcome al-Maliki as the new government’s leader, and predict, somewhat optimistically, that Sunni leaders will eventually welcome al-Maliki as well. The decisive factors in choosing al-Maliki over al-Jafari as prime minister, Ignatius writes, were three: US support; the endorsement of Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani; and the insistence of non-Shi’ites that al-Jafari and his overtly sectarian government depart. It must be remembered, Ignatius notes, that al-Maliki is a follower of Lebanese Shi’ite leader Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the original spiritual adviser of Hezbollah, who later left the group in part because he viewed it as too close to Iran. [Washington Post, 4/26/2006] Former Defense Intelligence Agency official W. Patrick Lang will give a different view in March 2007. Al-Maliki is far more sectarian than Bush officials are willing to admit, Lang will write. “They want him to be George Washington, to bind together the new country of Iraq,” he will say. “And he’s not that. He is a Shi’a, a factional political leader, whose goal is to solidify the position of Shi’a Arabs in Iraq. That’s his goal. So he won’t let them do anything effective against [Moqtada al-Sadr’s] Mahdi army.” And former NSC official Gary Sick, an expert on Iran, says that Bush’s support of al-Maliki is perhaps a form of brinksmanship in the administration’s efforts to destabilize Iran. “What has happened is that the United States, in installing a Shi’ite government in Iraq, has really upset the balance of power [in the Middle East],” Sick will say. “Along with our Sunni allies—Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—[the administration is] terribly concerned about Iran emerging as the new colossus. Having created this problem, the US is now in effect using it as a means of uniting forces who are sympathetic [to us].” Bush must reassure America’s regional allies that they will be protected if the Iraqi conflict spreads throughout the region. “[T]his is a very broad strategy,” he says. “It has a clear enemy and an appeal to Saudis, to Israelis, and has a potential of putting together a fairly significant coalition.” But, Sick warns, the policy steers dangerously close to provoking a conflict with Iran. “Basically, this is a signal to Maliki that we are not going to tolerate Shi’ite cooperation with Iran. This could lead to the ultimate break with Maliki. But once you start sending these signals, you end up in a corner and you can’t get out of it.” [Vanity Fair, 3/2007]

Iraq’s new oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, says that Iraq will need international assistance and billions of dollars in investment to develop its oil sector. “There is need to pass an oil and gas law to guarantee the right conditions for international companies to help develop the Iraqi oil sector,” he says. [Dow Jones Newswires, 5/23/2006]

Memo from Dallas Lawrence citing “karl and dorrance smith.” [Source: US Department of Defense] (click image to enlarge)Pentagon official Allison Barber circulates a memo destined for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Dorrance Smith. The memo suggests that “[b]ased on the success of our previous trips to Iraq with the Retired Military Analysts, I would like to propose another trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. Smith is referencing the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond), which uses retired military officers as “military analysts” for the various television news channels to promote the Pentagon and White House’s Iraq policies. The same day, Pentagon official Dallas Lawrence, who is directly involved in the propaganda operation (see June 21, 2005 and June 24, 2005), replies to Barber’s memo. Lawrence advises Barber to drop the request for an Afghanistan tour because it may not happen, and by leaving it out of the proposal, “we (you) won’t find yourself having to explain why it didn’t happen after he briefed it to karl at the weekly meeting.” The reference to “karl” cannot be proven to be White House political adviser Karl Rove, but, as Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald will note in 2008, “In the documents I reviewed, I haven’t seen any other ‘Karl’ referenced who works at the [Defense Department]. These are fairly high-ranking [Defense Department] officials and there aren’t many people they’re worried about having to explain themselves to (Smith’s position as Assistant Defense Secretary was one requiring Senate confirmation and he reported to Rumsfeld). Given the significant possibility that this program was illegal (see April 28, 2008 and May 6, 2008), and given [White House Press Secretary Dana] Perino’s denial of the White House’s knowledge of it (see April 30, 2008), this question—whether the ‘karl’ being briefed on the program was Karl Rove—certainly seems to be one that should be asked.” The likelihood that Rove is indeed involved in the propaganda program is bolstered by other Defense Department e-mails from Lawrence and other officials noting that they are attempting to have both President Bush and Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley (see April 30, 2008), an idea that “was submitted to karl and company from dorrance smith last week.” Greenwald will write that due to the proposed involvement of Bush and Hadley, the “karl” of the memos must by necessity be Karl Rove. If true, Rove’s involvement means that the White House is directly involved in a highly unethical and probably illegal (see April 28, 2008) domestic propaganda operation. [Salon, 5/16/2008]

E-mail from Jeffrey McCauseland. [Source: US Department of Defense] (click image to enlarge)The Pentagon holds a private briefing for a select group of military analysts (see January 14, 2005) on the topic of the Haditha shootings and investigations, involving several US Marines shooting two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians. After the briefing, one analyst, retired General Jeffrey McCauseland, appears on CNN to discuss the shootings. He e-mails a Pentagon official (whose name is redacted from the e-mail) after his appearance and says: “Just wanted to thank you again because the material you sent me very early this morning was very useful in trying to explain what is going on and trying to put the best possible face on it. You are a pro…” [Salon, 5/12/2008]

The dead Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. [Source: US army]Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the supposed leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is apparently killed in a US airstrike north of Baghdad. There are contradictory details of what exactly happened in the airstrike, and three days later the Washington Post will report that “circumstances surrounding the killing [remain] cloudy.” [Washington Post, 6/10/2006] His killing is hailed by US and Iraqi officials as the most significant public triumph for US-allied forces since the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein. For instance, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld calls him “the leading terrorist in Iraq and one of three senior al-Qaeda leaders worldwide.” The Washington Post calls al-Zarqawi the “mastermind behind hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.” [Washington Post, 6/8/2006; Washington Post, 6/10/2006] These pronouncements and media reports ignore a revelation made two months earlier by the Washington Post that the US military has been engaged in a propaganda campaign to exaggerate al-Zarqawi’s importance. The newspaper had reported that Zarqawi wasn’t behind nearly as many attacks as commonly reported (see October 4, 2004 and April 10, 2006). Even a Washington Post article about the propaganda surrounding al-Zarqawi published two days after his death will fail to mention any of the details provided in the Post’s original reporting on the campaign. [Washington Post, 6/10/2006] Later in the month, an audiotape surfaces in which bin Laden supposedly praises al-Zarqawi as a martyr (see June 30, 2006), calling him a “brave knight” and a “lion of jihad.” US officials say the tape is genuine, however it should be noted that a letter from 2004 said to tie al-Zarqawi to al-Qaeda leadership is believed by many experts to be a US-government promoted hoax (see April 10, 2006). [Washington Post, 6/30/2006] Al-Zarqawi did pledge loyalty to bin Laden in 2004, but they don’t appear to have been closely linked before then and there even are doubts about how close their relationship was after that time (see October 17, 2004).

The New York Times’s foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, recently lambasted for predicting a resolution in Iraq “within six months” at least 14 times for nearly three years (see May 6-11, 2006), explains the rationale behind his predictions to CNN’s Howard Kurtz. Friedman says: “[T]he problem with analyzing the story, Howie, is that it doesn’t—everyone, first of all, this is the most polarized story I’ve certainly written about, so everyone wants, basically, to be proven right, OK? So the left—people who hated the war, they want you to declare the war is over, finish, we give up. The right, just the opposite. But I’ve been trying to just simply track the situation on the ground. And the fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect.… The story’s evolving. And what strikes me as I see it evolve, when it drags on, six months after an election we still don’t have a government. Then, as a columnist who’s offering opinions on what I think the right policy is, it seems to me we have to be telling Iraqis we are not going to be here forever, providing a kind of floor under the chaos, while you dicker over the most minute things when American lives are at stake. So I think it’s a constantly evolving thing.” [CNN, 6/11/2006]

Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also mentioned the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a video. [Source: As Sahab]A man said to be Osama bin Laden releases an audio message following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was said to be head of al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq (see June 8, 2006). The voice says that al-Zarqawi, who died following a US air strike, is “one of our greatest knights and one of our best emirs… We were very happy to find in him a symbol and role model for our future generations.” The voice, which the CIA says is bin Laden’s, also asks that al-Zarqawi’s body be returned to Jordan, where he was born. The speaker also says: “We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, until we drain your money and kill your men and send you home defeated, God willing, as we defeated you before, thanks to God, in Somalia.” The message lasts almost 20 minutes and is posted on a website associated with al-Qaeda. [CNN, 6/30/2006] Al-Zarqawi pledged loyalty to bin Laden in 2004 (see October 17, 2004).

The US sends Washington, DC lawyer Ronald Jonkers to Iraq to work with Iraqi officials on the drafting of a new law that would govern private sector involvement in the development of Iraq’s oil. Jonkers is an attorney with Hills Stern & Morley. From 1992 to 2003 he served as assistant general counsel for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US agency that provides financing and political risk insurance to US businesses investing abroad. [American Lawyer, 4/26/2007]

A draft for a new Iraq oil law is completed. The proposed law was drawn up by three Iraqis—Tariq Shafiq, Farouk al-Qassem, and Thamir al-Ghadban—who have been working on it for three months. Shafiq is the director of the oil consultant firm Petrolog & Associates and was the founding director of Iraq’s National Oil Company in 1964. Ghadban recently served as the country’s oil minister (see June 2004). [United Press International, 5/2/2007] One provision in the draft law lists production sharing agreements (PSAs) as one type of contract that could be used to govern private sector involvement in the development of Iraq’s oil sector. Under PSAs, oil companies would claim up to 75 percent of all profits until they have recovered initial drilling costs, after which point they would collect about 20 percent. These terms are more favorable to investors than typical PSAs, which usually give about 40 percent to the company before costs are recovered and only 10 percent afterwards. Even when the price of oil was as low as $25 per barrel, the lower paying PSAs were profitable for companies. Critics say that the oil companies want to negotiate and sign the PSAs with Iraq before the country is stabilized so they can argue that the political risk of doing business in Iraq warrants higher profit shares. But then they would wait until after the situation has improved before moving in. Iraq would be the first Middle Eastern country with large oil reserves to use PSAs. Other countries have avoided PSAs because they are widely thought to give more control to companies than governments. James Paul of the Global Policy Forum will tell the Independent: “The US and [Britain] have been pressing hard on this. It’s pretty clear that this is one of their main goals in Iraq.” The Iraqi authorities, he says, are “a government under occupation, and it is highly influenced by that. The US has a lot of leverage… Iraq is in no condition right now to go ahead and do this.” Critics also suggest the companies’ shares of profits should be lower than typical PSAs, if anything, since Iraq’s oil is so accessible and cheap to extract. Paul explains: “It is relatively easy to get the oil in Iraq. It is nowhere near as complicated as the North Sea. There are super giant fields that are completely mapped, [and] there is absolutely no exploration cost and no risk. So the argument that these agreements are needed to hedge risk is specious.” [Independent, 1/7/2007] Immediately after this draft is completed, it is shared with the US government and oil companies (see July 2006). In September it will be reviewed by the International Monetary Fund (see September 2006). Iraqi lawmakers will not see the document until early 2007. The provision mentioning PSAs will be axed from the final draft due to Iraqi opposition (see February 15, 2007).

Adnan Rasha al-Mufti, president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Iraq, signs a new investment law into effect with the aim of “promoting investment” and “removing legal obstacles” to investing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The law seeks to create an investment climate that gives equal treatment to foreign and national investors. Among other reforms, the legislation creates new tax exemptions and establishes greater protection of property rights. [Kurdistan National Assembly, 7/4/2006]

The US government and major oil companies are given the opportunity to review the latest draft of a new oil law for Iraq (see July 2006). The draft has yet to be seen by Iraqi lawmakers. [Independent, 1/7/2007]

A shift leader of Triple Canopy, a private US security firm, shoots into at last two civilian vehicles in Baghdad after declaring that he is going to “kill someone today,” according to two of the firm’s employees, Shane Schmidt and Charles L. Sheppard III. It is suspected that at least one person died as a result of the unprovoked attack. [New York Times, 11/17/2006; Washington Post, 11/17/2006]

Triple Canopy employees Shane Schmidt and Charles L. Sheppard III notify the company’s senior supervisors in Iraq that they witnessed a shift supervisor shoot into two Iraqi civilian vehicles (see July 8, 2006). Within a week, the company terminates their employment contracts, saying that Schmidt and Sheppard did not report the incidents soon enough. The two employees later file a lawsuit against Triple Canopy, claiming that the company never investigated the shootings. They also alleged that Triple Canopy blacklisted them within the private security industry. [New York Times, 11/17/2006; Washington Post, 11/17/2006]

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, on a visit to Baghdad, refers to the drafting of a new oil that is underway and says it is important that the Iraqi Parliament—which apparently is not involved in the drafting process—pass it soon. [Time, 2/28/2007] Iraq needs to “pass a new law, a new hydrocarbon law under which international companies will be able to make investments in Iraq,” he says. Opening up Iraq’s oil industry will help Iraq realize “its very considerable potential with the benefit of investments from the international community.” He adds that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, along with the oil and electricity ministers, are “optimistic of passing that law by the parliament and they hope to pass such a law by end of this calendar year.” He says that US oil companies won’t consider investing in Iraq’s oil sector until “first there is security and second there is a hydrocarbon law that will delineate the rules of the road.” [Agence France-Presse, 7/18/2006]

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani tells the Financial Times that the drafting of a new oil law is underway and that Iraq’s parliament will hopefully pass it “by the end of the year.” He says the law “will open the door for the international companies to come and work in Iraq, and develop our new fields…. We have many, many fields that are waiting for development, (and) some of them are giant fields.” [Financial Times, 7/27/2007] Iraq’s legislators are apparently not involved in the drafting of the law. [Time, 2/28/2007]

The White House orders the military to capture and detain as many Iranians as possible in Iraq. The Bush administration wants to build a case that Iran is fueling the violence. According to a former senior intelligence official interviewed by reporter Seymour Hersh, US forces have had as many as “five hundred locked up at one time.” But many of these included Iranian humanitarian and aid workers who “get scooped up and released in a short time.” [New Yorker, 3/5/2007]

Senior British diplomat William Patey, meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair after returning from a tour of Iraq, tells Blair that Iraq is closer to civil war and partition along sectarian lines than it is to democracy. Patey tells Blair in a confidential telegram that “the prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy. Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq—a government that can sustain itself, defend itself, and govern itself, and is an ally in the war on terror—must remain in doubt.” The situation “is not hopeless,” he continues, but for the next decade Iraq will remain “messy and difficult.” Blair will later claim that Patey is merely reiterating Britain’s determination to succeed in bringing about its “vision of the Middle East based on democracy, liberty, and the rule of law.” [BBC, 8/3/2006; New York Times, 8/4/2006] The memo is soon leaked to the BBC. [Independent, 8/4/2006]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and the commander of US forces in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, participate in a sometimes-contentious hearing with the Senate Armed Forces Committee (see August 3, 2006). The three then take part in a closed-door session with some members of Congress. After the two meetings, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) calls on President Bush to accept Rumsfeld’s resignation. [New York Times, 8/4/2006] Rumsfeld will resign three months later (see November 6-December 18, 2006).

General John Abizaid testifies before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. [Source: Washington Note]General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad, has grown so severe that the nation may be on the brink of civil war. “A couple of days ago, I returned from the Middle East,” he says. “I’ve rarely seen it so unsettled or so volatile. There’s an obvious struggle in the region between moderates and extremists that touches every aspect of life.” He continues, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.” The New York Times reports that “the tone of the testimony at the Armed Services Committee’s three-and-a-half-hour hearing was strikingly grimmer than the Pentagon’s previous assessments, which have sought to accentuate the positive even as officials acknowledged that Iraq’s government was struggling to assert authority and assure security amid a tide of violence.” [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]Harsh Criticism of Rumsfeld - Abizaid is joined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld had initially refused to attend the hearing, but agreed to attend after Senate Democrats criticized his refusal. Neither Rumsfeld nor Pace contradict Abizaid’s assessments, though Rumsfeld emphasizes that the war must not be lost. Pace notes that while civil war is possible, he does not believe it is “probable,” and Abizaid says he is “optimistic that that slide [into civil war] can be prevented.” Some of the harshest criticism of Rumsfeld comes from committee member Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who tells him that he failed to send enough troops to Iraq in the 2003 invasion “to establish law and order,” he erred by disbanding the Iraqi army, he failed to plan adequately for the occupation phase, and he “underestimated the nature and strength of the insurgency, the sectarian violence, and the spread of Iranian influence.” Now, she says, “we hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy. Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?” Rumsfeld responds, “My goodness,” and then says: “First of all, it’s true, there is sectarian conflict in Iraq, and there is a loss of life. And it’s an unfortunate and tragic thing that that’s taking place. And it is true that there are people who are attempting to prevent that government from being successful. And they are the people who are blowing up buildings and killing innocent men, women and children, and taking off the heads of people on television. And the idea of their prevailing is unacceptable.” Clinton will call for Rumsfeld’s resignation later in the day (see August 3, 2006). [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]'Whack-a-Mole' - Because of the continued instability in Iraq, Abizaid says, there is little possibility that US troops will be able to return home in any significant numbers before at least the end of the year. Instead, he says, more US troops will be deployed in and around Baghdad to contain the worsening violence in the capital, and warns that the US will undoubtedly suffer serious casualties in that operation. Acknowledging the necessity for US soldiers to stay in Iraq for the immediate future, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) finds the military’s practice of moving those soldiers from one violence-ridden part of Iraq to another little more than playing a game of “whack-a-mole.” McCain says, “What I worry about is we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole here,” with insurgent activity popping up in places that troops have vacated. “Now we’re going to have to move troops into Baghdad from someplace else. It’s very disturbing.” McCain will wholeheartedly endorse the idea of a “surge” of more American troops into Iraq (see January 2007 and January 10, 2007). [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]

The New York Times’s foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, recently lambasted for predicting a resolution in Iraq “within six months” at least 14 times for nearly three years (see May 6-11, 2006), finally gives up his insistence on giving Iraq “six months” to “play out.” He writes: “It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war.… [T]hree years of efforts to democratize Iraq are not working. That means ‘staying the course’ is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B—how we might disengage with the least damage possible.” Iraq has finally put together its own elected government, one of the central goals of the reconstruction, and, Friedman writes, “the situation has only worsened.” Iraq is now “a lawless mess,” he writes, and to remain in Iraq is to only “throw more good lives after good lives.” A multinational “Bosnia-like peace conference” is one option, he says, but “[f]or such a conference to come about… the US would probably need to declare its intention to leave. Iraqis, other Arabs, Europeans, and Chinese will get serious about helping to salvage Iraq only if they believe we are leaving and it will damage their interests.” Otherwise, he writes, Iraq will almost certainly “erupt into a much wider civil war, drawing in its neighbors.” Whatever the outcome of withdrawal, he writes, “[t]he longer we maintain a unilateral failing strategy in Iraq, the harder it will be to build such a coalition, and the stronger the enemies of freedom will become.” [New York Times, 8/4/2006]

Neoconservative academic Meyrav Wurmser, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, says the problem with the Iraq war is that it is confined to Iraq. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” she says. “My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don’t give it a regional context.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 344-345]

In his book The Greatest Story Ever Sold, author and New York Times media critic Frank Rich writes that President Bush never entered Iraq with any idea of “nation-building.” Bush “never talked about building a democracy in Iraq” during the planning and marketing of the invasion, Rich writes. “The reason he didn’t talk about it was not that he was consciously trying to keep a hidden, hard-to-sell motive secret. The record shows that, for once, Bush’s private convictions actually did match his public stance. Neither he nor the administration had any intention of doing any nation-building. The war plan was an easy exercise in regime change, a swift surgical procedure, after which the Iraqis would be left to build their own democracy by spontaneous civic combustion, like Eastern Europeans after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Americans would hang around in small numbers, perhaps, to protect the oil ministry—the only institution they did protect after routing Saddam. Every single administration action of the time confirms that nation-building was not in the cards. That’s why General Jay Garner was picked as the top American official after the fall of Baghdad (see January 2003): The White House wanted a short-term military emissary rather than a full-dress occupation administrator because the job description required only that he manage a quick turnaround of power to the Iraqis and an immediate exit for American troops. That’s why [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and the war cabinet bought a Tommy Franks plan to draw down those troops from 130,000 to 30,000 by the fall of 2003. It’s also why the only serious prewar plan for rebuilding Iraq, the State Department’s ‘Future of Iraq’ project, was shelved by the White House (see April 2002-March 2003). General Anthony Zinni’s ‘Desert Crossing’ plan for Iraq occupation, which he bequeathed to Franks, his successor, was also shunted aside (see April-July 1999). Any such bothersome little details were entrusted instead to the Defense Department’s Douglas Feith, whose only (non) qualification was that he had been a loyal provider of cherry-picked Iraq intelligence to [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [Cheney’s then-chief of staff Lewis ‘Scooter’] Libby before the war.… Had nation-building been in the White House’s plan, surely someone would have bothered to investigate what nation was being rebuilt.” Even after Garner’s replacement by Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer (see May 11, 2003), nation-building wasn’t on the agenda. The two heads of “private-sector development” in Iraq were, in Rich’s words, “a former Bush campaign finance chair in Connecticut and a venture capitalist who just happened to be [then-press secretary] Ari Fleischer’s brother.” The CPA was staffed by “twentysomethings with no foreign service experience or knowledge of Arabic simply because they had posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation (see June 25, 2004).… The ‘nation-building’ that America finally did undertake was an improvised initiative, heavier on PR than on achievement, to justify the mission retroactively. Only then did the war’s diehard defenders disingenuously grandfather it in as a noble calling contemplated by the Bush White House from the start.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 213-214]

The International Monetary Fund is reportedly given the opportunity to review the latest draft of Iraq’s proposed oil law. The draft was sent to the US government and oil companies in July (see July 2006). [Independent, 1/7/2007]

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate based on a Congressional Research Service Report states that total funding for Iraq and the Global War on Terror could reach $808 billion by 2016. The report also states problems with oversight in that the Department of Defense has not provided Congress with the individual costs of each operation. The report begins by stating the administration has not answered frequently asked questions such as: How much has Congress appropriated for each of the three missions since the 9/11 attacks—Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan and other “Global War on Terror” operations), and Operation Noble Eagle (enhanced security for defense bases) for defense, foreign operations, and related VA medical care? How much has the Pentagon obligated on average per month for each of the three missions each year? What do trends in costs tell us about likely spending levels in the future? It continues by outlining major unknowns which Congress may wish to pursue for accountability in government: What is the estimated cost to reset—repair and replace war-worn equipment—and how might that funding affect the Pentagon’s regular or baseline budget? How are some types of war costs affected by policy and contracting decisions as well as operational needs and troop levels? How have deployed troop levels changed since the 9/11 attacks and how could Congress get accurate information on past and future troop levels? What is the average cost per deployed troop for OIF and OEF, and how might that cost affect future war costs? What are the estimates of future war costs? [Congressional Budget Office, 9/22/2006, pp. 1-3 ]

Grover Norquist, a powerful conservative financier and activist, says that the idea of forcibly democratizing the Middle East—the centerpiece of neoconservative foreign policy—may not be such a good idea, if the experience of Iraq is any indication. “Everything the advocates of war said would happen hasn’t happened,” Norquist says. “And all the things the critics said would happen have happened. [The president’s neoconservative advisers] are saying: ‘Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are.’ But after you’ve lost X number of times at the roulette wheel, do you double down?” [Unger, 2007, pp. 338]

A committee made up of ministers and politicians from the main Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish blocs begins final negotiations on a proposed oil law that will govern the development of Iraq’s oil sector. The latest draft of the oil law was completed several months ago (see July 2006). While Iraqi legislators have yet to see law, it has already been reviewed by the US government and major oil companies (see July 2006), as well as the International Monetary Fund (see September 2006). According to the New York Times, “Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander here, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, have urged Iraqi politicians to put the oil law at the top of their agendas, saying it must be passed before the year’s end.” The major issue of contention concerns how oil revenue will be distributed. Most Sunni communities are located in provinces where there is little or no oil. Consequently, they are arguing that revenue should be controlled by the central government and then distributed equitably among Iraq’s provinces. Their position is supported by the Shiites. But the Kurds, who live in the oil-rich north, strongly disagree arguing that the constitution guarantees the regions absolute authority in those matters. [New York Times, 12/9/2006]

Federal prosecutors attempt to determine just how much corruption, fraud, and theft has occurred among government contracts handed out to corporations for their work in Iraq. The preliminary answer: a great deal. The US Justice Department chooses to center its probe into war profiteering in the small town of Rock Island, Illinois, because high-ranking Army officials at the arsenal there administer KBR’s LOGCAP III contract to feed, shelter, and support US soldiers, and to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure. KBR, formerly Kellogg, Brown, & Root, is a subsidiary of oil-construction giant Halliburton. The reported violations are rampant (see February 20, 2008, October 2005, October 2002, April 2003, June 2003, and September 21, 2007). [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008] The investigation is under the aegis of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force, formed by the Justice Department to detect, identify, prevent, and prosecute procurement fraud by firms such as KBR. The Task Force includes the FBI, the US Inspectors General community, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, and others. [PR Newswire, 7/13/2007]Multiple Prosecutions Underway - The Justice Department prosecutes four former supervisors for KBR, the large defense firm responsible for most of the military logistics and troop supply operations in Iraq. The government also prosecutes five executives from KBR subcontractors; an Army officer, Pete Peleti, has been found guilty of taking bribes (see February 20, 2008). Two KBR employees have already pleaded guilty in another trial, and about twenty more people face charges in the ever-widening corruption scandal. According to recently unsealed court documents, kickbacks, corruption, and fraud were rampant in contractual dealings months before the first US combat soldier arrived in Iraq. Not only did KBR contractors receive handsome, and illicit, payoffs, but the corruption and fraud endangered the health and safety of US troops stationed in Iraq and Kuwait. One freight-shipping subcontractor has already confessed to bribing five KBR employees to receive preferential treatment; five more were named by Peleti as accepting bribes. Prosecutors have identified three senior KBR executives as having approved deliberately inflated bids. None of these people have yet been charged. Other related charges have been made, from KBR’s refusal to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that the corporation charged $45 for a can of soda. Pentagon Slashed Oversight - The overarching reason why such rampant fraud was, and is, taking place, prosecutors and observers believe, is that the Department of Defense outsourced critical troop support jobs while simultaneously slashing the amount of government oversight (see 2003 and Beyond). Lack of Cooperation - Kuwait refuses to extradite two Middle Eastern businessmen accused of LOGCAP fraud. And KBR refuses to provide some internal documents detailing some of its managers’ business dealings. KBR says it “has not undertaken an exhaustive search of its millions of pages of procurement documents” to determine whether other problems exist. [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, says that everyting that has happened in the Middle East has been exactly the opposite of what Bush administration neoconservatives have predicted would happen. Echoing the words of conservative activist Grover Norquist (see October 2006), Indyk says, “Nobody thought going into this war that these guys would screw it up so badly, that Iraq would be taken out of the balance of power, that it would implode, and that Iran would become dominant.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 339]

The Iraq Study Group, working to finalize its long-awaited report (see December 2006), works all of its connections to the White House to ensure that the report receives a fair hearing. No one in the study group anticipates their report will receive a warm reception from the White House. Co-chairman James Baker is playing on both his ties with the president’s father and on the fact that he secured the 2000 election victory for President Bush. “Here you have Baker coming back trying to pull the president’s chestnuts out of the fire,” a former State Department official later observes. “Not only did he help Bush out in Florida, but now he is doing the Baker-Hamilton commission. He and [Brent] Scowcroft were talking relentlessly during the policy formulation of the Iraq Study Group report. Baker was keeping the president informed the whole time. He is trying to throw him a lifeline and give him an exit.” Scowcroft, another close ally of the elder Bush, is working with his former protege, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to try to gain Bush’s attention. Rice indicates that she will help; unfortunately, she is not sincere in her assurances, as she never intervenes on Scowcroft’s behalf. [Unger, 2007, pp. 342-343]

The US commander for Europe, General James Jones, confirms that he made a damning quote to author Bob Woodward. In Woodward’s September, 2006 book State of Denial, Jones is quoted as saying that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had “systematically emasculated” the military’s leadership. Jones confirms to a Washington Post reporter that he indeed said those words to Woodward. According to the book, Jones, formerly the Marine Chief of Staff, called the war in Iraq a “debacle,” and added, “The Joint Chiefs have been systematically emasculated by Rumsfeld.” According to the book, Jones also told Marine General Peter Pace, who was about to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “You should not be the parrot on the secretary’s shoulder.” Pace has denied that Jones made such a remark to him. Jones says that the quotes are correct—though he now says Iraq is less of a “debacle” than a “big problem”—but adds, “[H]ad I seen [the book], I probably would have suggested that the tone was more critical than I intended it to be.” Jones says: “I do not associate myself with the so-called revolt of the generals. I believe that general officers, both active and retired, have an obligation to let their views be known,” but should do so in a “helpful” way. Of his comments about Rumsfeld, he says, “We’re a team, we’re together, we have occasional family disagreements.” [Washington Post, 10/5/2006; Roberts, 2008, pp. 158, 247]

The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General completes an audit of three contracts awarded to the Lincoln Group (see September 2004-September 2006) to plant stories in the Iraqi media that were favorable of the US occupation. An unclassified summary of the investigation’s classified report states, “Psychological operations are a central part of information operations and contribute to achieving the… commander’s objectives,” which are aimed at disseminating “selected, truthful information to foreign audiences to influence their emotions… reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of governments” and other entities. In addition to criticism that efforts to manipulate the press undermine the US’s stated aim of establishing a democracy in Iraq, critics have also contended that the program violated US law prohibiting the military from conducting covert operations. Only the CIA has a legal pass to engage in such activities. However, the inspector general’s report concludes that commanders in Iraq “complied with applicable laws and regulations in their use of a contractor to conduct psychological operations and their use of newspapers as a way to disseminate information.” The only problem identified in the report is that the Lincoln Group violated federal contracting guidelines by failing to provide “adequate documentation to verify expenditures” for the company’s first contract. [Associated Press, 10/19/2006; New York Times, 10/20/2006]

The chart presented during the CENTCOM briefing. [Source: New York Times]A briefing by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) says that Iraq is sliding towards a complete breakdown of order. The briefing features a chart used by the military as, in the words of New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, “a barometer of civil conflict.” Gordon describes the slide as providing “a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.” The briefing was prepared by CENTCOM’s intelligence directorate, overseen by Brigadier General John Custer. The slide contains a color-coded bar chart titled “Index of Civil Conflict,” which tracks the sharp rise in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in February (see February 22, 2006), and documents a subsequent rise in violence despite US efforts to contain conflicts in and around Baghdad. Gordon describes the chart as tracking, among other factors, “the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures,” and not so much more traditional factors like “the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.” The chart shows Iraq moving quickly away from “peace,” the ideal condition on the far left of the chart, to a point labeled “chaos” on the right side. Gordon notes, “As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.” A CENTCOM official says, “Ever since the February attack on the Shiite mosque in Samarra, it has been closer to the chaos side than the peace side.” [New York Times, 11/1/2006]

A long shot of Firdos Square during the statue toppling process. A small knot of onlookers can be seen surrounding the statue at the far end of the area; most of the square is empty. Three US tanks can be seen stationed around the square. [Source: Ian Masters]A study by the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media is presented at the October 2006 conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The study features an in-depth examination of the iconic toppling of the Firdos Square statue of Saddam Hussein (see April 9, 2003, April 9, 2003, and April 10, 2003). The study notes that “wide-angle shots show clearly that the square was never close to being a quarter full [and] never had more than a few hundred people in it (many of them reporters).” But after the initial two-hour live broadcast of the statue’s fall, US broadcasters chose to repeat tightly focused shots that, in author Frank Rich’s words, “conjured up a feverish popular uprising matching the administration’s prewar promise that Americans would see liberated Iraqis celebrating in the streets” (see November 18-19, 2001, 2002-2003, August 3, 2002, and September 9, 2002). According to the study, some version of the statue-toppling footage played every 4.4 minutes on Fox News between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. the day of the statue’s fall, and every seven minutes on CNN. [Rich, 2006, pp. 83-84; Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 10/22/2006]

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